


Getting Some Answers

by 1stly_fannish_writing_dispensary



Series: Not As You Thought [2]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Continuation of feels, F/M, Feels, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-02
Updated: 2016-05-05
Packaged: 2018-05-04 11:15:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 33,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5332154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1stly_fannish_writing_dispensary/pseuds/1stly_fannish_writing_dispensary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Where Ward is made use of by Coulson again, but Ward's relationship with his team (Mendez, Sayers and Carl&Carl) deepens.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Reception

**Author's Note:**

> I left a lot of questions unanswered in my previous work. Let's see if I can answer them without raising new questions. If new ones pop up, I'll just have to keep posting until none are left.
> 
> Get ready for part two, everyone! xoxo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Second Installment of the Not As You Thought series, chapter 1. This is where we see what's been going on with Ward and everyone else, and where we learn that Coulson has a job for Ward.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GUESS WHO'S BACK. BACK AGAIN.
> 
> I don't know where that's from. But it FITS, man, it FITS. Enjoy the ride!
> 
> (Also, I don't know if the chapter format looks weird, but if it does, I tried to fix it. Anyone has any ideas on what I might do, other than write shorter chapters, then please let me know.)

Someone was pushing at his shoulder blade, shaking him; he mumbled and rolled away, re-adjusting the pillow and sighing that deep sigh that people give when they're going back to sleep. Mendez shook him again and then he was saying something. "You broke your alarm clock again." Yes he had. It was evil. And now the threat was vanquished. He could sleep without interruption. But now Mendez was pulling him out of bed and pushing him to his feet. "Good thing you only slept in fifteen minutes. Sayers is waking the recruits. Go take a shower." When Ward was halfway in the bathroom just off of his bedroom/everything else room, Mendez added, "Remember your medicine, too." Ward muttered under his breath and stood in icy water for five minutes, counting the seconds and slowly waking up. He swallowed the pills without any water, changed into fresh clothes and toweled off his hair, brushed his teeth and reluctantly took the food Mendez had waiting for him. While he ate, Mendez hovered over him making sure he cleaned each dish before shooing him out the door, where Carl stood, a book in hand. He smiled. "Have you read that book yet? Or did you just fall asleep? You looked tired last night. Did you sleep well? Do you want me to get you coffee?"

Ward was thinking a bottle of whiskey for himself, and some duct tape for Carl's mouth. But he'd just clone himself. "Coffee, yes."

"Decaf!" Mendez yelled from Ward's room. 

"Not decaf," Ward told Carl.

"But he said..."

"Which one of us is scarier?"

"You."

"Not decaf."

"Okay. But it was your idea."

"I know. Where's Sayers?"

"In reception."

"Stop calling it that."

"We're receiving people. Ergo, reception."

Ward stopped himself from sighing and started to dematerialize, only to have Mendez lean out the door and say, "No. Stairs." When Ward held up his arms in protest, Mendez raised his eyebrows and pointed to the stairs. With. Emphasis. Ward shook his head and slowly made the trek from his room, at the top of the facility, to "reception", where the newest finds had just finished their breakfast. He stood at the top landing of the metal staircase that led down to a hub of Inhumans, their voices reverberating off the cement walls. Big warehouse-style windows hazy from grime let in some early morning sunlight, and shadows from the ivy someone had planted danced in a whitish-yellow square on the floor near a bench where a group of young Inhumans talked and laughed. Sayers was at her own table, working on her laptop. She nodded to a couple people when they walked by, and one of Carl's clones came and sat a box of files down next to her. She took off the lid and rummaged through it, taking out a stack of folders and sitting them by her laptop, then taking the cup of coffee one of the Carls was holding and draining it; she handed the empty cup back to him and resumed her work. When Ward approached the table, she didn't take her eyes off the screen when she said, "Everyone's waiting to see you. Say something motivational before I kill them."

"Why don't you do it?" he murmured.

"You're the director." She smooched her lips at him and said, "Plus, I've got paperwork to do. Daisy'll want this, stat." She jabbed the space-bar on the last word. "She's almost here, by the way. Sent me an email. Prepare for doom."

"That was dramatic."

"I wanted to say 'an earthquake's coming'."

"Oh, nice." Ward took the cup of coffee Carl gave to him and drank half of it. "Okay." He walked to the front of the room and said, when everyone had stopped eating to look at him (this was terrifying and it wasn't even noon, why did they have to stare?), "Welcome to the facility. My name's Grant Ward. Most call me Hellfire."

He led them through the usual speech: their new lives would be nothing like their old ones, they'd have to adjust to difficulties and learn not to abuse the advantages, they'd have to come to terms with who they'd become and what was in store for them, and most of all, "You will have to exercise caution. I'm part of an organization that helps those with Inhuman abilities to be safe. The goal of this facility is to provide a safe place to house Inhumans until they can be transported to S.H.I.E.L.D., where they'll receive training and care from those with more expertise. For now, we'll do the best we can to educate you." He nodded and stepped back. Next to him, Sayers said, "Any questions for the director?" His fingers curled into a fist and he smiled at her. She beamed and hit a button on her laptop. Hands shot up and people started talking without being called on.

"When did you get your powers?"

"Why do they call you Hellfire?"

"What's your power?"

"When can I see my family?"

He shut his eyes and tried to breathe. Mendez would have a fit if he lost it now. Maybe he really should have had decaf. 

"I think my colleague has confused you," he said. "My job's only to keep you here. If you have any questions, you should really ask Mendez. He's here. Somewhere."

"Who's going to train us? You said you'd educate us. Does that mean you'll do it?"

This was why he didn't like making the speeches. Mendez was better at this. He had a way with people. "Someone from S.H.I.E.L.D. will be here shortly to collect those who want to leave. This was all explained to you last night, so I hope you've made your decision by now."

"But that's only one night to make a decision!"

"Well, sorry for the inconvenience."

"She's outside," Sayers said. "Hey, everyone, wanna meet Quake?"

A murmur of recognition buzzed through the crowd. The new Inhumans got up and finally, finally left Ward alone. He walked up the staircase and to his office, where Mendez was waiting with more advice. "You should go with them. You can introduce them to her."

Ward shrugged. "No, she'll do that herself. She's good with that. Go say hello."

"Not unless you come with me."

"Not happening."

"Guess I won't say hello, then. You did have decaf, didn't you?" "Yeah." "Are you lying?" He didn't answer. Mendez followed him to his room. Ward sat down at his desk and turned on the laptop Sayers had built for him. (She'd gotten some advice from Fitz on a few of the parts, but that was information she'd elected to keep to herself.) Mendez watched as Ward clicked through his messages, typed and sent a few, and opened and shut a few desk drawers like he was looking for something. Finally he found a pen and jotted a few things onto it. Then he threw down the pen. "What?" "You need to watch your diet. It could effect your meds." "Watching my meds or being able to stay awake through the day. Hmm." "You can take a nap," Mendez said. "I can also do my job. There are more important things than making sure I take my pills, Mendez." "When the pills effect how you do your job? Hmm." "I get to decide how I do my job, not you." "I am a doctor," Mendez said slowly. "I give medicine to sick patients." He pointed at Ward. "Sick. Patient. I know what I'm talking about. You're throwing a fit. Stop it. It's unprofessional." Ward typed slowly. "Decaf?" Mendez said. "Fine." "Watch your diet." "Fine." "Promise." "Fine." "I want to hear you say the words." Ward looked at him. His jaw muscle flexed and then he smiled his Charming Smile. (He still capitalized things in his head.) "I promise." "Good. You want some coffee?" That son of a...

**************************

Daisy was used to the crowds of wide-eyed admirers by now; her name was whispered in the secret circles of Inhumans that were tucked in the back corners of the Internet, placed there by Sayers, mostly. Sayers was branching out, though, and with S.H.I.E.L.D.'s resources, she was able to cover a lot more ground, and more lives were saved and changed. A few Inhumans had studied at places like Harvard and MIT, so Coulson offered them positions and financial backing, ways to continue studying what they were passionate about. Many took him up on the offer, but a few decided to go back to Ward's facility, where they trained to go on missions to rescue other Inhumans. 

Ward hadn't come out to meet them; neither had Mendez. It must be a bad day for him, then. He'd gone on a lot of missions in a row, so he was probably drained, resting up to go on another run and burn himself out, continuing the cycle until something stopped him. Mendez did his best to keep tabs on him, nag him about his medication, made sure he didn't contain his powers, and that he kept eating and drinking. She looked up at the row of windows that were curtained off, a small section where shadows were now moving. The door swung open; Mendez stepped out, walked down the stairs, and smiled when he saw Daisy standing in the doorway while the Inhumans that were leaving said good-bye to the Inhumans who had decided they wanted to stay. She joined him at the table where the coffeepots were set out.

"How you doing?" she said.

"Excellent. And you?"

"Fine. Tired. How's Ward?"

"Tired. Stubborn."

"Is he taking his medication?"

"He threw a fit with me over it, but yes, he's promised to."

Ward. Throwing a fit. These two things did not compute in her mind. There was Ward, the inscrutable; Ward, the traitor; Ward, the prisoner; Ward, the enemy; Ward, the Inhuman; Ward, the broken; Grant, who she'd kissed; Grant, who she'd said goodbye to, and Grant who'd said good-bye in return; but there was no Fit-Throwing Ward. She added it to the mental box of things she would never understand and said, "Tell him thanks. He's been doing a lot of good work."

"If I could get him to come out of his room when he's here, I'd have you tell him." Mendez took out a book and opened it to where he'd left off.

"Aren't you getting something?"

"No. Just messing with him." He nodded up at the windows without taking his eyes off the page. 

Daisy took the new recruits back to base, flying co-pilot with May, and Mendez waited an hour, until Ward stepped out, looking for him. "Are you going to make you ask for my medicine?" he called down to Mendez.

"No. I'm going to make you ask nicely, though."

**************************

"How's he doing?" Coulson asked. Daisy lounged on the couch while he sat in a chair facing her. "Well," she said, "he's on regular medications, Mendez is making sure he keeps clean and that he eats, all that stuff, he's getting missions done, and he's bringing more recruits in for us. He's doing all right."

"Think Mendez would let me borrow him?"

"What, like a car?" Daisy said. "No. But maybe you could ask him."

"You think he'd say yes?"

"More likely to say yes than Ward. What do you need him for?"

"A mission."

"Surprising. A mission. From a secret agent base. From the Secret Agent Overlord, who is now sitting in his own secret agent office, where it looks like a knock-off James Bond film set." Daisy made an explosion noise with her mouth. "No. Way." She laughed when Coulson scowled at her. "What's the mission? I'm listening." 

***************************

Mendez was at the door just as the minute-hand ticked to twelve o'clock at night. "You're done."

"One more file."

"No."

"Mendez."

"Director. Get up. Turn off your computer. Go to bed. What if you die tomorrow, where would I get my paycheck?"

"Do you get a paycheck?"

"No. You need to stay alive so he has hope of one," Sayers said, coming in. "Coulson keeps trying to talk to you. He says he wants to meet. Questions, comments, how should I proceed?" She saluted. "Director."

Ward gulped the water so that Mendez would leave him alone and said, "Leave it for tomorrow."

"Whatever you say."

"Stop calling me 'director'."

"So humble."

Ward shut Sayers's laptop when he walked past. "Goodnight." His feet were bare and he was only wearing sweatpants, so he flopped into bed and covered his head with the pillow, with his nose and mouth poking out. He noted before he shut his eyes that Mendez had put a new alarm clock by the bed, with the book Carl&Carl had given him by it. There was even a lamp. It was almost normal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Are we at the end? Is it that time? Indeed it is. Hope you enjoyed it, feel free to comment, and keep on reading! Ship, if that is your wish! xoxo


	2. On The Roof

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where we experience a little of Ward's fear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To anyone who might say that Mendez and the rest of Ward's team aren't even canon, might I remind you a) which site you're on, b) that Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss created a character that wasn't in the original series and her name is Molly Hooper (subtext of her name being Too Precious But Too Fierce) so the whole "not in the actual story" is a hollow argument, and c) it's my fanfic and I don't owe you anything.
> 
> That said, I hope you enjoy this, because I am. ^_^

"Come on, just one more step."

Ward stood in the doorway of the roof's entrance, concentrating on the polished cement floor on the inside and how different it was from the rough roof concrete. His fingers held the doorframe and let go; he picked at the paint and shut his eyes, putting one foot out and holding it over the concrete. His other foot was barely outside, but it still counted. He put his foot down on the concrete. Now there was the issue of letting go of the doorframe. Mendez waited in a chair with a book...and Ward's laptop. The challenge was simple: come outside, on the roof, or fall behind on work. Ward focused on prying his fingers free of the frame, and when he was finished with one hand, he reached over and pulled the other one free. Inhumans were out there. They needed him, so he had to get to his laptop, and get to work. 

He pushed himself out the door and felt the absence of a ceiling like a scab being ripped off his whole body. Just walk to the laptop, that's all he had to do, and then he could go back inside. His feet were still bare, soaking up the warmth the concrete had absorbed. He picked his way over to the laptop and took it from Mendez, hugging it to his chest. "Good job," Mendez said. "Look around a little bit." When Ward recoiled he said, "Not an hour. A little bit. Difference." Mendez turned the page; he wore black shades and slouched in the chair. Ward stood at the roof and watched people below, some of them tending the gardens, others training with some of the people Daisy had sent over. Mendez probably knew their names. He was good about those things. The buildings were bunched together, the only sign of civilization for hundreds of kilometers in any direction. More and more Inhumans were being discovered; sometimes he thought he would collapse from the strain of bringing them in and trying to keep his mind from disintegrating.

"I need to ask you."

Ward turned. "What?"

"Coulson wants to meet." The laptop creaked when Ward gripped it tighter. "I said I would have to ask you," Mendez told him. "If you don't want to, I'll tell him to leave."

He was here? "If I want to."

"You've done a lot already. It's up to you if you want to do more or not."

Mendez was kind; he was also oblivious to the fact that NO ONE asked Ward what he wanted, NO ONE was in the habit or the mood to ask that, but everyone always asked of him. Ward felt one of those freak shivers that people sometimes get, those moments when you twitch violently for no reason and make an "uhh" noise, maybe, sort of blinking really quickly while you try to figure out what just happened, and what it happened for. 

"I'll see him."

"Only if you want to."

"I know."

"You can stop if it gets too much; you know that."

"Fine."

"Ready?" When Ward nodded, Mendez took out his phone and pressed the screen. A few seconds later he said, "Come up." And hung up. Soon, Coulson walked out onto the roof, wearing shades and a suit and tie, old-fashioned, sweating a little in the sun. Mercifully enough, they made no attempts to do "hello Ward", "hello Coulson", opting to get the business over with.

"Ari found a new Inhuman."

"She's going on missions."

"Yes."

"She has a kid."

"She wanted to go. And it's not like I can stop her. You know what she can do."

The power of camouflage: an enviable ability. There is not one person on this planet who hasn't just once wished to be inconspicuous, left alone to think their own thoughts, while everyone else insists on talking and talking and never. Shutting. Up. To have the power to remove yourself from that. Ward felt his palms tingle and almost smiled to think of how typical this was, wanting something someone else has, seeing only the perks of it, never the consequences, always thinking how great it would be. Most would say his powers were great. They would probably wish they had them. Well, if he could give them up...

"She can't bring them in. You need to extract her."

"Daisy does extractions."

"She'll be working with you."

"She has new recruits," Mendez said.

"They can wait," Coulson said. "Relax, Ward," (HAHAHAHAHA) "Lincoln will take care of them. We're not abandoning them."

"That's new."

"We didn't abandon you."

"You didn't help him," Mendez said.

Before the parents got their bickering into full swing, Ward said, "When do we leave?"

Mendez and Coulson both looked at him. "You can say no to this," Mendez said.

"No, I can't."

This wasn't a noble statement. He was very tired, his feet hurt, and he wanted everyone including but not limited to Mendez to leave him alone. He wanted to go back inside, never to be out from under a ceiling again. But he was good at this: good at missions, good at standing in as acting savior to people who didn't know how to fight for themselves. Nope, he wasn't noble, and he certainly wasn't happy to do this. Just really, really good at doing it, even so.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you liked it, feel free to comment!


	3. Mendez

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is told from Mendez's POV. We see what he thinks about Ward and Coulson, and there's confrontation with May.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm getting a protective mama-bear vibe from Mendez, so far, anyway. It's a little unhealthy, how much I like him. If the chapter format looks wonky at any time, please tell me, and if you know of a way to fix it I'd really love to hear it. (Other than write a shorter chapter. I can't promise that.)
> 
> Enjoy! xoxo

"Yes, mama," Mendez said. He had a phone pressed to his ear and he was leaning against the wall, while Ward finished his workout. "I know. Don't worry, my job is good. The people are good. I'm safe. Are you doing all right, is the doctor good to you?"

Ward put his full weight into the bag when he struck it with his elbow. Mendez watched the bag swing and said,

"Yes, mama, the nice boy is doing better. I'm trying to take care of him. Yes, he eats. Mama? Mama. I need to go." Ward had stopped and was resting his head on the bag, holding it in place. "I love you, Mama." Mendez hung up and started walking to Ward; he stopped when Ward looked at him. Something about his eyes made Mendez want to hug him, like a little brother. Ward had come to him three years ago, after long lines of black cars had trundled into their village, searching for Inhumans. He wouldn't tell Mendez his name at the beginning, only that he needed to leave and take anybody like him along. Mendez listened; he knew how bad things could start, and that they'd only worsen the more he ignored them, until they were built up into a catastrophe. So he moved his family to a different village, where Ward had a place for them to stay. Mendez set up a new practice and checked back with his old village to make sure they had a new doctor there. 

His family was in America now, living in California on a small farm out in the sticks. His mama called him once a day and passed the phone around so that each family could yell through the mouthpiece at him. They asked him how the good boy was doing: Ward. He told them the truth, first bad (his family prayed for him), better (Mama kept asking if the good boy was eating), and getting even better. That was were they were, now. But sometimes Ward would get the look he had in his eyes now; his body would slump; his eyes would dim. He didn't look in control; he just looked sad. Hopeless. Then he would push through it, take his medication, stick to the routines, and tell Mendez he was fine, Sayers he was fine, everyone who asked that he was fine, fine, fine. When Ward started to burn himself out from going on too many missions, overusing his powers, not getting enough sleep or eating (Mendez honestly wouldn't have harped on that part as much as he did if it weren't for his mama's voice lodged in the back of his conscience, always checking), Mendez coaxed him out to the roof and tried to get him to go outside. Success didn't happen with every attempt, but a few times, like today, Ward stood there and watched people below. 

Ward didn't realize how many people he'd made happy, how many people were safe to even feel happy because of what he'd done. He didn't understand that they'd welcome him. Mendez assumed, correctly, that Ward thought he was just there to work. No connections. No relationships. When he tried to tell Ward this, though, a little gleam of suspicion would slip into Ward's eyes like contact lenses before he changed the subject. Mendez wasn't a fool; he knew Ward wasn't perfect. That didn't mean his current mental illness; that wasn't a flaw. It was a fact. Something people dealt with or slipped into denial about all the time. No, he knew how dark Ward could be. His files were full of black lines, a censored past. But Mendez knew that, from a young age, Ward had been a weapon, someone else had pulled the trigger, and now the weapon was trying to reinvent itself so that it could be useful. And Ward was useful. He just thought that this meant he couldn't be anything else. 

Again, Mendez wanted to hug him like a little brother. Someone who felt that alone needed a hug; you didn't need to be a doctor to see that. Sure, it wouldn't fix anything, but it would be something. And it would be more than Ward was used to getting. 

"Ward."

He stopped pounding the bag and looked at the floor.

"You should stay here and rest. You still haven't recovered from your last mission. And have you eaten today?" 

"This is my job," he said. 

"Jobs come with vacations."

"I already said I'd do it, Mendez, I'm not going to back out."

"Did you eat?" Mendez asked again.

"Yes! I ate!"

"When?"

"Half an hour ago." Ward pulled off his gloves. Mendez threw him a towel and he wiped his face. Ward's eyes fell on the door and he paused with the towel still covering half his face. Mendez turned and saw May walk in with a duffel bag. Her face was stoic, but he knew she'd seen him and discarded him from her focus. He stepped closer to Ward and said, "Did Coulson send you? Get out."

"I would, but your boss called me in here."

"What?"

"You're late," Ward said. 

"What?" Mendez looked at Ward. "What are you doing?"

"She's insurance."

"For..."

"In case I lose control."

"You won't," Mendez said.

"I won't want to. But it's happened before." Ward smiled his Charming Smile at May. "You ready?"

"Don't," Mendez said, taking Ward by the arm. "You need to stick to the routine."

"Half an hour."

"...Fine."

"Thanks."

"I'm timing you." He shot May a look and went to sit on a bench against the wall.

********************

He set May up with her own room. She arranged her things in order and said, "Thanks." It sounded flat, like a dropped pebble. Thanks. (Plop.) 

"Why did Ward send for you?"

"He's paranoid."

"Around you, that's strange," Mendez said.

"About himself." She spoke through tight lips, her feet planted on the ground like she was sparring with him. "The last time he was with Daisy or anyone but you, he almost died."

"Because of you."

"No."

"No?" 

"He was scared of hurting someone else, so he decided to remove the problem. I didn't do anything to help him."

"No, you just tried to break him in half."

"I was justified. You ever see your team betrayed by one of their own?"

"No. I've heard and seen him when he has his nightmares, though. He's afraid to even go outside unless it's to go on a mission. He tries to form relationships but he can't really think of them like that, because all he's ever known, the only ones who have ever led him, have fed him twisted ideals and expected him to heal from any wounds he got because of it." Mendez got in her face; May kept eye contact, tipping her head up to look at him. "I read how you kept him in solitary confinement. You were justified in keeping him there, but guess what, hmm? Guess what. He threw himself against a wall, and smashed his head, probably got a concussion."

"We gave him a scan--"

"And this was after! It was AFTER he tried to slice open his wrist. Brain scan, good, but that happened as a result of what Ward tried to do to himself."

"Coulson tried to talk to him."

"He should have kept trying."

"Don't try to blame us for everything. Ward's not an idiot; he knew what he was doing."

"I'm not blaming you for everything. I'm asking the people who claim to be 'the good guys' to accept part of the accountability." Mendez stepped back. "Ward... he probably only tried to fix what he did because of S.H.I.E.L.D. That was the first place where he found out what it felt like for somebody to care about him and not want anything back. Then Coulson tried to use him, again, like Garrett did. I respect all of you for your ideals, and for helping Ward to see he has a choice. But what I don't respect you for is trying to shovel all the blame onto his shoulders. What I don't respect you for is taking out your anger on him when you should have been professional. And what I don't. Respect. You for. Is that Ward was deteriorating and you chose to let him burn," Mendez said. "You shouldn't be surprised that I'm going to protect him from you now."

"He asked for me."

"I know that. I understand you. Do you understand me?"

"Yes." May turned when Mendez was walking away, and said, "You're harder than Coulson thought."

"I'm harder than most of you think. Hotter too. I'm the Human Lamp."

And he actually got May to smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you liked the chapter, feel free to comment as always, and please let me know if the chapter looked wonky and if you have a suggestion (other than writing a shorter chapter) on how to fix it. Thank you for reading!


	4. Daisy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So then there's Daisy, right, and there's Ward, right? And it just gets awkward. You dig?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you like this. The tension between these two, while not hostile, and while no longer romantic in my eyes, makes for perfect conditions to build a scene in.

Carl&Carl met her at the door. She liked him...every one of him. He was welcoming and sweet, didn't really like to ask for things, was more into helping other people. He gave her coffee with one of his selves, and carried her bag without asking. She let him because it made him happy. It was a pretty common thing at this facility to find someone who desperately needed to feel useful, so they could have proof they were needed. She looked up at the curtained-off windows where no shadows moved now and wondered if he was happy, too. 

Mendez waved at her and smiled. She liked that guy; he was in Ward's corner. Loyal. And May had some type of respect for him; this much Daisy had gathered from her tone of voice when she talked about him. He was making progress, now up to getting Ward to eat one meal a day downstairs, with the rest of the Inhumans. They wanted him to lead, Mendez said, but he wouldn't even come out of his room unless it was to work out, and he'd only do that because Mendez wouldn't let him have any exercise equipment in his room. "Did you know he was going to ask May?" Mendez said, reaching her. 

"Yes," Daisy said. "May didn't want to."

"She said so."

"Ward insisted."

"I'm aware."

"I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault."

"Where is he?"

Mendez pointed to Ward eating in the corner with his back to the wall, reading as he ate so that no one would come over to talk to him. Carl sat there, literally talking to himself, oblivious to the dark looks Ward was directing towards him. Mendez put his fingers in his mouth and whistled a short piercing note; a few people looked up, among them Ward. He saw Daisy and seemed to get smaller. Carl waved and motioned for her to come sit down with them. Ward shut his book and left the tray on the table, standing, and then he had a visually conducted conversation with Mendez. He held his book close at his side and walked up to them. "Hi."

"Hey." Daisy smiled. Ward scraped his thumbnail on the book's spine. "Thank you for agreeing to help us."

"My job," Ward mumbled. "Get some food or else Mendez won't leave you alone." He turned and left.

"He's never really good on these days," Mendez said. "But he's trying."

**************************

Ward stood in the doorway to the roof, inched his feet out and pulled himself free of the ceiling's security, walking to the edge of the roof and looking down. He wouldn't do anything wrong, he would do his job, he'd do his job well, and then she could leave. It would be all right. Mendez would say that when Ward was having a terrible day, the kind where he couldn't get up and didn't care to try to get up tomorrow or ever. Sayers might pull him out of bed, Carl might talk and talk until Ward had to get up to make him stop, but they'd make sure he kept walking, because... 

Why?

He rubbed his eyes and tested the sensations of gravel and concrete on the bottoms of his feet. He kept them bare because that's what he was used to. It was a free feeling.

For a second he held his hand out over the roof's edge, and let the air hiss around his fingers; for that second, he felt almost better. Entirely better. No pills, not anything. Then he took a breath and pulled his hand back in, sitting down in Mendez's chair and reading. 

"Ward?"

His shoulders were cold, as was the rest of his back. Clouds had blocked the sun, and Daisy was there with a pair of shoes that she put by his feet before she sat down. "Mendez says you should wear those."

"I'm fine."

"You don't want to get sick."

Sick(er), he thought to himself. And he put on the shoes. "Thanks."

"Thank Mendez."

Ward scratched at the book's spine with his thumb, because it had worked before. Daisy sat forward; she did the ultimatum-delivery pose with her elbows on her knees, leaning forward to make it seem confidential, fingers loosely linked to add an element of casualness, so that Ward wouldn't get scared. He didn't get scared; he was scared. Being scared was something he viewed in atoms. There could have been a cute little inspirational bit about how that could mean he was symbolically turning his fear into something powerful, as well as doing that literally. Nope! He was just terrified and it was a small, daily miracle that he hadn't as yet pissed his pants. (Again. Seriously, if he made that into a habit it would barely be a surprise.) And now here was Daisy, trying to be inspirational. Or something else just as bad, maybe worse. Since she was talking to him? Worse.

"Ward."

She'd started with his name! That tell, meaning "hey, we're about to get deep and emotional", or "hey, I want something". But he didn't think she meant the second one this time. He looked at the door and thought of the ceiling inside to calm himself; he'd never been outside for this long of his own accord. Mendez was always there before, too. But he was probably busy taking care of everyone else, leaving Ward alone for now, until he came back to hound him about taking pills or eating, something about basic needs and self-care. 

"I was mad at you. Angry."

"You're not now?"

"Listen to me," Daisy said. "I might not say be able to say this if I have to repeat it. At the beginning, when we found out you were HYDRA, I was mad then."

"Good."

"But. We messed up."

"When?" 

"Don't make me list it."

"I....wasn't," Ward said, and meant it. "When did you?"

"You needed us."

"I always need someone."

"Grant."

He stood up and kept the chair between them as a barrier. He was fine, he was all right, she just wanted him to listen--why couldn't he listen? Mendez probably made her come up here to talk to him. He thought it would be good for Ward, to connect and heal. Right? Yeah. Made sense. Good. He was fine. Fine, fine, fine. 

"I'm sorry we didn't see what was happening to you."

"You thought you could trust me." Ward shrugged. "Mistake made. Hope you learned from it. Are we ready to leave?" He walked to the door and disappeared. Mendez, he had to find him. His body was shaking, he felt his control slip, which probably meant that he was late on his next dose. She was just trying to be nice; Daisy made things right. She helped people, even him. She wanted him to be able to do his job right, too. And he could understand that. Made sense, fine. Yep. He stopped in his room and the clock read ten minutes past when he should've taken his pills. Sayers ran in. Ward couldn't get the bottle open. She took it from him, made him sit on the edge of the bed while she held his cupped palm close and shook the circular tablets into it. Ward took these with water and obeyed when Sayers told him to rest. He'd overdone it. That couldn't happen when he was on this mission, any mission. He had to be in control.

His pulse steadied. Mendez came in to check on him and bring him food, telling him that Carl had packed everyone's things except Sayers' (she packed her own gear). It was time to go. Ward got dressed in clothes that weren't just sweatpants and a white t-shirt. He looked handsome again. Sayers gave him a whistle and took him by the arm, walking slowly so that he was able to adjust to the change from one ceiling (warehouse) to another (the car, although it was better described as a roof). Mendez drove the car and followed Daisy away from the facility. Ward's hand tightened on his leg but he said nothing. Mendez glanced in the rearview at Ward and then at Sayers. She handed him her tablet and started going over the mission; none of them heard the details, since Ward was letting his meds kick in, Carl was reading a book, Mendez was busy exuding concern while he pretended to focus on driving, and Sayers was trying to make Ward smile a little. All her words were just background noise. 

From her spot in the passenger's side of the front, May watched the horizon from behind her dark aviator's shades, a reminder to Ward that he could make a mistake. So he pulled himself up, took a breath, did the whole breathing exercise thing, and put on his Charming Smile. There was work to do, and now, now he could be useful!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, feel free to comment, and I'll try to get back to you!


	5. Routine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where Ward comes to the base and we learn about the mission, and May actually makes a human decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All right so I'm gonna make you go "aww" and ache a little bit, and that might sound weird but it's fanfic, you really think there isn't anything weird about this already?

"He's here."

"Where?"

"Just coming in, what do I do?"

"Don't draw attention to us, that'll be awkward."

"It's not already?"

Fitz had sorted every piece of equipment at least five times, using every system of classification, ranging from scientific to the Sorting Hat at Hogwarts. Simmons sat there, watching the door, waiting for Ward to pass, because she was not ashamed to admit that she was curious: how did he look? How was he doing? When he stepped in her view, she had her answer. He was starting to get some gray hair, but his face looked very similar to what she remembered from the old days when they were all a team. May walked in step with Ward and looked ahead, already on her own mission. Everyone had been surprised when they'd heard that Ward wanted May to be in any kind of proximity to him, but now they walked as a pair, and Ward seemed like a prisoner... just like the old days; but unlike them, Mendez was there, and Sayers, and Carl&Carl, who was cloning himself to talk with people and get to know them. He tried to talk to Mack but that didn't pan out, so he wandered into the lab with Sayers and waved to Fitz and Simmons. Sayers gave Fitz a wink and asked Simmons, "So where do I set up? The garret? A box? I'm flexible."

"Some tables are cleared," Simmons said. "Over there."

"Oh, segregation, I get it. Very sexy." Sayers carted her things over to the tables and Carl said, "No worries, she's always fussy in new places."

"Shut up and get me a coffee," Sayers called from where she was setting up.

"'A coffee'," Carl muttered under his breath. "One of the most European things she's said yet. See if one of you can make her say 'bloody', so we can see if she's British or not." Sayers threw a pen at him and he slipped into the hall, calling to a few recruits from Ward's facility who now worked here. Sayers had her gear up and running with a soft electronic hum, and in this time three separate versions of Carl brought her a coffee, black, because she had no time to put anything in it. "Did he get his meds?" she asked Carl once, and he nodded. Sayers looked satisfied and went back to typing, making sure the chatrooms to attract Inhumans were secure, getting updated on the mission. She handed the tablet she'd brought with her to another one of Carl and said, "Take this to Ward so he can cheat. It'll make him look smart."

"Okay," Carl said.

"Where's Mendez? Find him for me?"

"Yeah. You have to pee soon, Sayers; holding it in isn't healthy."

"Holding anything in isn't healthy. So tell me about your mother."

"Why? I'm never bringing you home to her."

"Are you ashamed?"

"Oh yes, honey, you're my guiltiest of pleasures." He walked out with the tablet.

"How did you meet Ward?" Sayers said in a bad Scottish accent. "Well, Fitzy, it was at a big party. I was on a balcony in a chic black evening gown, elbow-length white gloves, bloody red lipstick, and diamond earrings and necklace. Stolen, of course. Ward came out on the balcony just as they were letting off fireworks and handed me a glass of champagne. And then I knew: I'd spend the rest of my days cleaning up his messes. And if you actually believed that, it's because I was confident and caffeine-ridden, not because of my storytelling skills. I mean, I would let you experience that, but I'm not sure it's for children."

"I'm not a child," Fitz said.

"That's what the children say."

"'The children'. 'A coffee'." Carl handed her a bottle of water and an apple. "They're called 'sidewalks', not 'pavements', okay, honey?"

"What do I call you when I'm lonely?"

"Your last resort."

"Our banter's getting even more witty," Sayers said.

"It really is. I almost blushed."

******************************************************

May might have been behind Ward, but Mendez made sure he was behind her. He didn't know what he would do if she tried something; various scenarios played out in his mind, most of them being very painful for him, all of them a last resort. He should have practiced at the firing range more, back at the facility, but there was always too much to do, and always the thought of Ward waiting for Mendez to be distracted... and then using the gun on himself. Maybe Ward wouldn't. Maybe he was strong enough to fight that kind of urge. But Mendez didn't take chances with his patients, and not this one. Not his little brother. He watched Ward talk with Coulson and his face was calm, the tablet was leaning on his leg in a loose, relaxed grip, just shy of loose enough to drop the tablet. He was doing his job well: that's what Mendez would tell him, because it was the only compliment that Ward accepted. 

There were five Inhumans that Ari had found, but they were watched, since their captors knew about their abilities and the market for Inhumans was a booming industry. Daily, Sayers intercepted all sorts of manifests of nothing but 'Inhuman livestock', messages of shipments, all headed to every country, every province, every place where the greedy thirsted for some new thing to rule. Inhumans had many different uses, as it turned out: bargaining chips, the newest additions to "pleasure houses" (because of course that was the first place people went--can we sleep with it? No? Oh well, what else can you do?), private security services, or basically modern circus acts. Disgusting, depraved uses that few people knew about, or if they knew, they didn't care. The ones who did care thought that this was the first time something like this had happened, the first time a small minority had been taken advantage of, and abused, and mocked. That was the other side of having something most didn't have: if you had it and they didn't, you'd get insults, and that was if you were lucky, or smart. If people were feeling meaner, they'd be sure to act meaner. If people were feeling hypocritical, well, up on that soap-box they'd go. This wasn't a new outrage. It just had more of a media presence, which was one of the only things people listened to anymore.

Ari was inside, acting as adopted daughter of the buyers, played by Lance Hunter, and Bobbi. Ward didn't react to this information except to ask where they were located in the building, a mansion surrounded by security measure after security measure, and then nothing but miles of desert. It was aptly named the Oasis. "Bad guys love mansions," Daisy said to Coulson, who smiled, that sort of cramped smile that seemed to ask "am I doing this right?". Ward would be the newest purchase, and Daisy would infiltrate the next auction, while other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents would get into position. May would be ready with the getaway aircraft. "Where will my team be?" Ward asked, and Coulson said, "They'll be with May." Mendez was the only one who saw Ward's discomfort, other than Daisy, whose eyes lingered on Ward while he scanned the layout of the mansion in an effort to distract himself.

Once the meeting concluded, Mendez trailed Ward and May back to the rooms Daisy had set aside for Ward and his team. "You good?" Mendez said. Ward nodded. Carl leaned out of the lab and looked concerned; Mendez waved him off and made Ward focus on his exercise, using the red rubber ball to burn off some of the excess energy Ward had stored up from not using his powers. It was pretty hypnotic, watching the ball evaporate and then re-form, every atom in place. Ward did this two to three times a day; he could do it without looking, since he knew the feel of the atoms, when one of them was out of place, when they all fit, and then boom, there was a ball. Ward made a few jokes about this, saying he was a true nutcase, complete with a red rubber ball to keep him entertained and docile. Mendez told him, whenever he said this, that if he thought that would get him out of the exercises he was wrong. 

Carl came in with a meal and some coffee. "Decaf?" Mendez asked warily. Ward nodded, almost rolling his eyes. He was faking bravado because May was in the room, eating in slow bites. Mendez didn't even know if she was eating food or not; she seemed to dine on her own bad mood. Maybe that was how she kept so slim. Other than breaking whatever got in her way. Apparently her own vow of silence hadn't stepped into her path. Ward refused to let her leave him, not even when he went to the bathroom. He was that scared of getting someone hurt. 

Ward ate quickly, then typed on his laptop until it was time for him to work out. He left with May, came back (not bloody, just sweaty), and May followed him into the bathroom so he could shower before she went and showered on her own. Mendez was trying to keep him in his usual routine, to make the new environment more familiar, less frightening. If Ward got stuck in his head again, he might try something like overdosing on Simmons' serum and evaporating. And while Mendez would make a joke about this to Ward in order to get him to eat/drink/get out of bed, he didn't think he could take losing his little brother, the good boy his family had prayed for without even knowing his name. 

******************************

May rarely took fifteen minutes to shower; there was always something more important to do: train new recruits with Daisy, go on missions, follow her orders, or make up her own orders. Coulson was keeping a tighter leash on her, now, ever since she went off on her own and tried to help Hunter off Ward. Admittedly, the leash wasn't as tight as it could be, since Coulson trusted her not to do it again. She was trying, in her own way, to place some of that kind of trust on Ward. He didn't have any for himself; someone had to. And this whole trust thing was only happening because of Mendez. Whatever he saw in Ward, whatever that was left to save--maybe she could see it too, if she tried. Loyalty was a trait she admired, and she didn't see it often anymore, except in the wrong places. It was strange, and she'd never admit it unless there were hostages involved, but Mendez's rant? It actually made her half-dead conscience twitch.

"Where were you?" Ward said when she came in.

"Showering."

"Don't take so long."

"Fine."

Ward went back to working on his laptop, glancing up to make sure May was close. He wouldn't believe her if she tried to tell him how much Mendez cared about him, how much his whole team worried about him just because they could, not because he had any dirt on them. Sayers didn't seem like the kind of woman who would be bullied by anybody, much less someone as messed up as Ward. Carl was nice, the kind of nice that people are when they're trying to atone for their past. And Mendez had been won over. Those were the reasons they stayed. They wanted to stay. Ward had a hold on them, just not the kind he thought. If May ever got Ward to believe this, his world would tip upside down like a glass of water, and he'd have to re-evaluate everything he thought was definite. He'd have to realize he was cared for. That would crush him, maybe even make him relapse.

May was human. She was flawed, but that only reaffirmed the previous truth. So she knew that it was better to keep quiet. Ward could figure out the truth when he was ready, even if it hurt when he did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you liked, feel free to comment


	6. The Product, The Auction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where Ward goes up for sale and Ari pulls some more scariness out of her soul to put it on display.
> 
> Other stuff, too, but I'm not sure what. I make it up as I go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All right, spoilers, spoilers, if anyone's picky about that.
> 
> I saw Maveth, yeah, episode 9? And let me say that the writing has now become predictable. How much do you want to bet that it'll wind up with WardShell doing a Dramatic Villain Death/Defeat, or a Villain Turns Hero at the Last Second and Sacrifices Self to Save Others? I almost have enough confidence in this to bet money on it. 
> 
> That said, I'm sticking to my own regularly scheduled program.

Mansions seemed like the only buildings that could sprawl. They were by their nature huge, so of course, they'd take up a lot of room. This was the modern definition of the word 'mansion': a really big house that's supposed to intimidate the neighbors, maybe incite some jealousy, a little envy, if the mansion looks expensive enough. The gates opened onto a long, curving driveway of fine white gravel, framed by trees and exotic plants; a procession of vehicles moved slowly up to the front steps of the Oasis, each stopping long enough for the passengers to get out before their drivers moved on to park the cars in the garage. The garage was by the back entrance, which doubled as the business entrance, where the product was unloaded, each person with a bag over their head, restraints on hands and feet, and guns trained on them should they manage to free themselves and attempt to fight. As the buyers were offered refreshments, encouraged to remove their shoes so that they'd feel more at home, the product was hustled into a back room where a team of makeup artists waited to touch them up, make them look more desirable.

One of the artists secretly admired the white male, said to have a power that had something to do with heat. Maybe he was a pyro. The artist didn't care; he wasn't bad to look at, which made for an easy canvas to work on.

He had dark hair, a good jaw, dark eyes... sad eyes. A sad, romantic hero. A warrior's look. The artist decided to play that angle and dabbed away the bruises, covering them beneath a layer of makeup. This one was already muscular, too, and he looked healthy. That meant a good price, and a good price meant that the artist's cut would be bigger this time, a thought which inspired an odd kind of gratitude. 

They'd caught the pyro wandering around the grounds, trying to break through the gate, yelling about his friends inside and telling anyone that they had to let them go, that this wasn't right; he displayed his powers when security tried to neutralize him, causing the mission to change from getting rid of a minor annoyance to catching a walking profit. The Inhuman went quietly once they promised him he could be with his friends, and then they were kept in storage until the day of the auction. The artist would miss this face. Wasn't every day they got a pretty one to work on. The others were sickly, and frightened, like many of the ones before had been. They squirmed when the brush touched their skin and tried to plead for their freedom. The artist waited patiently for them to be restrained before resuming the application of makeup.

"Almost ready?" one of the staff asked from on the other side of the closed door. 

"Just about," the artist answered. "I can't rush this."

"You can if you like to get paid."

The artist scoffed and said to the security guards holding the last Inhuman down, "Finished."

The pyro was placed at the end of the line. Each Inhuman would go up for auction, one at a time; they'd saved him as last. Really big cut, then, the artist thought. Once everything was packed up, she went out to watch from behind the curtain, snagging some food from the table as she went. The buyers were seated at a group of small café tables covered in white linen tablecloths, their paddles laying by all the dishes and silverware arranged before them. More staff brought them food and drinks; one of them was an Inhuman, and made the dishes and glasses float gracefully before making a landing in front of the buyers. One of the women clapped her hands and offered the Inhuman some money as a gratuity. The Inhuman took it, thanking her too many times, enough to sound ignorant.

Then the auctioneer stepped behind his podium and said, "I'd like to welcome all of our buyers to the Oasis Auction." After going on to explain the process to those who were experiencing the auction for the first time, he said, "First item: Inhuman female with water-based ability, ranging from liquefying a substance to freezing it solid. Healthy, young, good for breeding. Starting bid $250,000. Do I hear $300,000?" As the bidding progressed, the girl started to cry, silently, as though she couldn't hold it in. Then her eyes fell on someone in the audience and she swallowed and brushed away one of her tears, careful to keep it from splattering over the pad of her fingertip; she looked at it and froze it, then held it up for the buyers to see as she smiled frantically. The auctioneer called out, "And good teeth, that ought to be taken into account, not many of these with good teeth!" Paddles went up, and the total got bigger, until the girl was marked SOLD, for the sum of 950,000 US dollars. The next one went up, another female, this time with the ability to attract metals and minerals by sensing them, a power bound to be useful for locating gold or other valuable substances. She was sold for three million dollars.

Ward was led onto the stage, unbound, without a shirt. He was dusted with a little bit of rainbow glitter, and while the auctioneer listed his uses and how healthy he was, his uses also included "pleasure for those with specific tastes".

Ward rolled back his shoulders and, at the prodding of the security guard, stepped off the stage and walked among the tables. The ladies turned to look and whisper to their companions; a couple of them nodded in admiration, twisting their paddles in their hands. Ward was a product in high demand. He moved to one of the tables furthest away from the stage, and there sat Ari, with Hunter and Bobbi on either side. Daisy stood behind them; she looked like she was undercover as Ari's bodyguard, but Ward wasn't sure. He walked around the table, very aware of the guns pointed at him, and stopped at Ari's chair (Daisy, carrying on her cover, put a hand on her sidearm, ready to defend her client). She turned and watched him, smiling like she was just part of the audience, wondering where this was going to go next. Ward took her hand in his and knelt, pressed his lips to it, and smiled. Ari laughed behind her free hand and then said, "Papa, I like it. Buy it for me."

"The bidding's not started," Lance said. He wore trendy glasses that were so trendy they looked stupid, a nice suit that was tailored to fit him with a red square of cloth folded into a triangle and poking out of his breast pocket. Impatiently, Lance crossed his arms and asked the auctioneer, "Do you want my money or not?"

"Excuse me, sir. Some of our products can be a bit precocious." 

Ward walked back onto the stage without any prodding and stood there with his arms crossed, staring out at the crowd. He stared at Lance, who stared back, until Lance bought him for $4,500,000. The bidding war was a brutal one, but now Ward stepped off the stage with a SOLD sign around his neck, waiting with the other purchases. Ari caught his gaze and smiled at him; then she tapped her finger against her temple. A voice echoed in Ward's mind.

Youshould getget ready...

For what? Ward asked with his mind. He knew who it was: Luca, a boy with telepathic skills, a friend of Ari's. 

Ari's performance. Getget the Inhumans together; they know what's going on, I told them.

The Inhumans grouped into a tight knot behind Ward. The auctioneer was mingling with the buyers, now, thanking them for their business, inviting them to stay as long as they wished and to take advantage of the food. Daisy trailed Hunter, Bobbi, and Ari to where Ward was standing. "You are tall," Ari said. "It's nice." She took his hand. "I am glad to see you here. This is going to be a good show." Ari pushed back her bangs and stepped around Bobbi, who started moving the Inhumans to an exit, whispering into a comm that they were on their way; Coulson was on the receiving end with Mendez. Mendez. The team. Ward would do this job and then he could go back to them. He would do a good job. Maybe they'd respect him? 

"Excuse me," the auctioneer called to Bobbi, "you're only allowed to take your own purchases, ma'am."

"Oh, excuse me," Bobbi said. "I didn't know they were called 'purchases'." She put her hands on her hips. The Inhumans waited behind her. "Thought they were just called humans."

One of the buyers scoffed and took a drink of champagne, and then said, "I'm going to have what's mine." She leered at the young girl with the water-based powers. And then she sneezed, very hard, and took the napkin one of the staff offered; she wiped her face, took away the napkin--and screamed. She wiped at her face, again and again and again, dropped her champagne flute (the Inhuman waiter caught it before it hit the ground and set it on a table), backed away from them. "What's wrong?" Ari walked up to her slowly, heels clicking on the polished marble floor. "Ma'am. I am sure he is a human." She pointed to the waiter. "I am sure they are human."

She pointed to the Inhumans, the water-based girl, the mineral girl, the boy who had scales growing on his skin and a "third eyelid" like a fish might have. The auctioneer had dubbed him the Little Mermaid. He had ginger hair and pale, pale skin, almost albino-pale. He was trying so hard to look brave, not for the girls or anyone else, but himself. Ari pointed, finally, to the woman. "But you. You are... someone who takes the right of others. Are they human? Yes, no: that is for you to decide? Is that how you think?" Ari's smile showed only her incisors, the fang-teeth. She drummed her fingers on the side of the woman's head, and the woman howled in fear. "No. Not human. Animal. Beast. And I know this. You decided that." Ari ran her hand down the woman's chin, saying, "So much blood, don't you see it? Smell it? Is it... in your mouth?"

The woman was screeching, past the point of sounding like a human. That was fitting, wasn't it? "She's done, Luca," Ari said to the air. The woman stilled; a second later she wiped at her face, and then she gaped at Ari, who stood up. Immediately, guns were pointed, and she was surrounded. But as she walked, Ari flickered, like a light about to go out. There, gone; there, gone; and then she appeared in front of one of the security guards and hissed, and the man reared back like a frightened horse, running for the exit which was blocked. The other buyers finally came to their senses and ran to the doors, trying to break it down, screaming, dialing on their phones only to realize that there was no reception. This was the Oasis: an experience unlike any other. Ward looked around for the auctioneer while Ari bent backward, arching her spine and writhing like a demon from any horror movie, popping her shoulders out of socket, and making her fingers writhe like maggots; her eyes were rolled back in her head. Without doubt, she was the most terrifying thing in the room, because Luca was making the buyers see, the security see, that she was coming for them, she was going to kill them, and the death was going to be slow and delicious, vengeful, horrible.

Ward caught the auctioneer in a back hallway, heading for the garage; he slammed him against the wall and said, "You have more of them here."

"No, I don't, I, I..."

"Where are they? Who do you get them from?"

"I can't, I can't."

"Why?" Ward leaned closer. "Because you don't want to die? You don't want to be mistreated? Really? You don't want to find out that you're good for breeding?" The wall sunk behind the auctioneer's head as Ward drove him further in, as the atoms broke away from one another and scattered into the abyss. "That's strange. You were happy doing it to someone else when they couldn't fight. I saw you. I heard you. I WAS ONE OF THEM." His hands were shaking, and he could tell the auctioneer's air supply was being cut off, and he knew that he should lighten his grip, but he also knew... that he didn't want to. This man wasn't Garrett, but he was like him: always trying to gain, always using other people, dropping them when they'd done what he'd needed them to do. Those people... all alone. Good breeding? GOOD BREEDING? Ward slammed the auctioneer into the wall again. A whimper and a wheezing moan flew from the man's lips, and Ward could feel his own fury building up inside him, telling him it was okay to probe each atom of the auctioneer's body. They shouldn't be staying together. He shouldn't be alive.

A flash of blue struck the auctioneer in the chest and he slumped. "Ward," May said. "Put him down. You got him."

"May."

"Yes."

"May..." He let the auctioneer fall and stepped back, put a hand to his eyes. "Thanks."

"Get out of the way." May hefted the auctioneer up onto her back. "Our getaway's delayed for you. Happy?"

"No."

"Good. You hurt?"

"No."

"Then run with me." She jogged down the hall and led him outside where their ride away was waiting. Now the Oasis was swarming with S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel. Hunter came up to Ward, and Ward stopped. From where he waited inside the aircraft, Mendez stiffened. "I should shoot you," Hunter said. Ward nodded. "You saved them, though. Makes my moral high ground a bit shaky." And he walked away. Ari smiled at him and lifted a hand, waving. Ward waved back before he climbed into the aircraft and took a seat. May flew them back to base, and the Inhumans sobbed with freedom, with relief, and Coulson told them they were going to be okay. There was a safe place for them here. Daisy looked for Ward in the medical bay where Fitz and Simmons were working. He was gone, they said. Not GONE gone, just hiding. Daisy thought, of course; this place was full of heroes. He didn't think he was one. 

But he was on the roof, smiling, too tired (too rainbow-glittery) to feel scared of the outside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you liked it and feel free to comment as always! Rants are especially welcome, insights will be cherished as well! xoxo


	7. Ari Is Not Sorry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where May is pretty decent and helps Ward, and where Ward probably pisses off Mendez. Also, we may learn more about Carl. Or Sayers. Not sure yet. But most likely Carl. 
> 
> And Ari listens to May and Ward interact.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Been wanting to use that chapter title for a while now. All this sadness about Ward still surrounds me, but the outrage has died down. Anyone still have some left on reserve, you can vent, we're all on the Sad Fandom Fleet right now.

Carl was in Prague, Czechoslovakia. 

Carl was in Yorkshire, England.

Carl was in an unnamed village in the Amazon rainforest.

Carl was in Queensland, Australia.

And Carl was working. He was working hard. 

 

His schedule was something like this: Work. Keep working. Get coffee. And then keep working. Carl had the type of powers that allowed him to get all the benefits of sleep but still do things, which didn't leave him a lot of time to dream, but it did let him help people. Like the Inhumans in the Amazon, who thought they were cursed, and their punishment was to become the village oracles, predicting the future until they died. Since he had the time and the capability to learn many, many languages online (and those that weren't available online he studied on-location), he explained the situation to their chief and offered him substantial payment in return for the Inhumans. They called themselves his slaves, but he said they were free. And then he'd left them in a location for Sayers to report to Ward, so he could go pick them up. Sayers was the only one who truly knew the extent of his powers; they'd worked as partners ever since the Inhumans made the news, and since then he had done what he was able to do--and that was a lot. He'd saved, relocated, negotiated, bought, smuggled, rescued, and sometimes killed (per request or by true, dire necessity) whatever Inhumans he found. Sayers worked on the chat rooms, yes, but she also created new identities for the Inhumans who needed them, the ones who decided not to go to S.H.I.E.L.D. or to Ward's facility but instead to make out how they could on their own; she provided secure bank accounts and online accounts; she helped them find lawyers and proper employment, doctors, and places to give birth or get married. She was the reason the Inhuman community now flourished, or part of the reason; Carl was the other half, a savior to the victims, as Sayers liked to say. 

Carl moved on from his previous locations, covered the rest of Europe, and then he blinked. He was now at Reception, Ward's facility, with his laptop on a polished wood table in front of him. There were four of him walking around the room for his own sanity; they were there to bear the strain brought on by his extended mental reach, only achievable from multiple minds, and since he already had a strong mind, it was even stronger when duplicated, something he'd become an expert at. It was similar to making a fake I.D., because it wasn't really HIM, but it was a really good imitation, one that could be moved and spoken through, thought through, fought through, all from a main location: wherever Carl the Original was. But his original self bore a special curse, in that his original mind was now so divided that if it brought all its duplicates together, they would overlap and, shortly thereafter, overwhelm him, cooking his brain and making him useless. He knew on multiple levels, multiple minds, what it was to feel like that. He feared it more than anything, with a simple fear that kept him more awake than caffeine would ever be able to do. 

He tilted his head to the side and cracked it, loud, satisfyingly. Ari grimaced from her spot by the door; she'd just appeared, and she was holding her baby over her shoulder, where the child slept. Carl watched it move quietly and wondered for a moment: what sort of world would the kid grow up in? It would be hated, of course. Everything and everyone in existence had a section of hate reserved for it. He knew what it was on a personal scale; he'd witnessed it in Ward's eyes when he was stuck at Reception. Part of him wanted to tell Ward that he was the same, he knew that pain, but the rest of him held back. Why? Well, he was a coward. Carl the Original was a wuss. Even after saving, and thinking, and rescuing, he was a glob of overly divided fat, walking around, accomplishing little.

But maybe (and this was a hope he kept in his original mind, since his duplicates had a tendency to sometimes blab after a slip in his focus) he could be like Ward someday. Brave. Strong. Carl the Original smiled and went back to work.

*********************************

Ari left Carl to his laziness and walked down the hall, bouncing her baby when it stirred and began to fret. She'd put him down for a nap soon, once she found Luca. He was working more with Mendez, learning to be humble about his powers, and to be less of a supervillain in the making. She didn't know if this was a good thing or not. To her, it all depended on perspective. Supervillains saw themselves as saviors; of course they had a high likelihood of being demented monsters, but they could be right. Villains could turn out to be heroes with the wrong makeup on; heroes could be the ones people should fear. Perspective. But, Luca was happy. That would be sufficient for her. If he started talking about the cliché of world domination, she'd slap him and tell him to eat something. She was a mother. Food was foremost on her mind, now.

Passing by the doorway to the gym, she heard rhythmic thuds and thumps, and the sound of heavy breathing: somebody was in the middle of a workout. Yet no one was scheduled for physical education at this time of day, something that Mendez had worked out. Ari turned, made sure she had a good grip on the knife she carried with her, and went into camouflage mode, keeping close to the wall. May was focused on a practice dummy, smacking it in a series of rigid poses that could have been like a deadly dance if they were at their normal speed. Ari smiled; it was good to watch her, and it made the baby calmer. But she still kept her knife handy, as she'd learned to in the presence of capable fighters. May stopped for a short break, took a swig from her water bottle, and rolled her shoulders as she prepared to go at the heavy bag. Shadows flitted over the opaque glass set in the gym's doorway, and it slid open to reveal Mendez, scolding the second shadow which belonged to Ward, who shuffled in with the strap of his duffel bag slung over one shoulder. When Ward saw May, he straightened, like a trainee standing at attention before a supervising officer. "Hi," he said, when Mendez nudged him. "I'll be over there." Mendez put his fingers on Ward's arm and said, "Actually, he'd like to train with you. As he's been thinking of doing."

"Yes," Ward said. "But she's done. So. Later."

"I'm never done," May said. "Come on. I have some power left."

"But." Ward stopped when Mendez suppressed a sigh. "All right."

"I'll be here," May said drily. Ward left and she said to Mendez, "You think he can do this?"

"He wants to; he told me he does. Right now he's scared. I'm just here to help him."

"Sure this is help?"

"He'll have to try and see."

"You'll be watching me, though."

"Oh no. I trust Ward. And he's made the choice to trust you. Don't break that trust," Mendez said. "Please." Ari thought he was the only one who could make a 'please' sound like a real threat.

"You have my word."

"Thank you."

"Mm."

Ward came back in, put his gloves on. Mendez nodded. "Don't overdo it," he told Ward, and then left.

Ari watched May walk Ward through the warm-up, the main workout, self-defense, and the pauses when she made him take a break. One of these breaks, Ward took a dose of medicine in, before they continued. May was calm, but harsh; impassive, like a natural disaster taking down a house. And just like a natural disaster, she was frighteningly beautiful. Ward hit her too hard and recoiled like he was the one who'd taken the shot. "Sorry," he said. "We should stop." He pulled at the strap on one of his sparring gloves. May rolled her eyes and said, "We're not done yet, Ward." So he inched his way through the process, until he was dripping with sweat and less self-conscious. Finally May stopped and made sure Ward drank again; this time he took long, deep pulls from his water bottle and mopped the sweat off his face with a towel May threw to him. "Thanks," he said.

"You don't need me," May said.

"What?" Sweat dripped into Ward's eyes. He scraped it away with a thumb. 

"You don't. Need me. You can control yourself."

"No."

"Yes. You can't keep me here to watch you."

"Does Coulson need you?"

"He always needs me. You don't."

"Did Mendez tell you to--"

"No. Ward, listen. Learn how to control yourself. I won't be here forever." May walked to the locker room, adding, "Last time I say this: learn to work on your own."

"I already know how to do that," Ward said, "it didn't help my 'control'."

"You didn't have Mendez. You had me. Literally." May did her rendition of a smile. "That do you any good?"

Ward was quiet.

"Thought not. Be here tomorrow, same time."

"Okay. Sorry."

"For what?"

"...I don't know."

"Stop apologizing."

"Fine."

Ari slipped out at the same pace as Ward, who paused. For a moment. Looked around. And kept walking. "Carl, where did Mendez tell you to hide my laptop?" he said to one of the duplicates wandering the hall. Carl asked, "Done with your workout? I'm supposed to ask." Ward gestured at his duffel bag and Carl smiled. "Good! Need anything? I mean, yeah, your laptop, but like, coffee, a new book to read... I've got a few good ones in French. They're really dense but worth the commitment."

"Just my laptop."

"...Yeah... Yeah, sure. This way. Hey, Mendez! And Luca! Do you need anything, Luca?"

"Shut up, Carl."

"Rude. Oh! Laptop! Sorry."

"It's all right," Ward said.

Carl smiled. Walking past, Sayers whispered, "'My hero'." Carl pushed her and puffed out his chest as he led Ward to the laptop's latest hiding place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoyed it? I hope so! As previously stated, vent if you wish, ship if you care to, and help me out with your opinions and all the hate, all the love, all the 'meh'. Because I need it. I crave it, actually. xoxo


	8. The One Who Can't Do and Doesn't Want To Teach

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mendez suggests that Ward start teaching some of the recruits, or at least talking with them. 
> 
> As you can imagine, Ward is not a fan of this idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter includes a mental episode from Ward. Let me state, I'm not trying to justify his actions by blaming it all on a mental illness, although that is sometimes the case: I'm trying to help people recognize that he does in fact HAVE mental problems, and how it impacted what he went through with Coulson's team, as well as Coulson's team worsened the condition both intentionally and unintentionally. 
> 
> Allow me to explain:
> 
> Ward was from an abusive home, right? That's probably where the illness started. He lashed out and his brother got hurt, and then there was guilt, and then he was in juvenile detention as a teenager. Already traumatized and already guilty, he was also very impressionable, in need of a role model, right? Okay! And then here comes Garrett, a savior, someone who tells him there is nothing wrong with how he is, that he just needs to harness his abilities and make them a source of strength. Then Garrett puts him with S.H.I.E.L.D., where Ward actually learns that it's okay to care about people, it's okay not to expect the worst, and it's okay to work as a team that sort of grows into a family. And there was Skye, as she was then known. He learns it's okay to love. But how does he love? How he's been taught to: secretly, protectively, because it might be taken away. But with Coulson's team, he shows his humanity; he becomes conflicted about what he's doing. THEN, he's outed as Hydra. And Coulson and the team, after reasoning that he's a dangerous criminal, put him in solitary confinement for an obscene amount of time, they stop him from committing suicide TWICE, and the second time involves intentional blunt-force trauma to the head, concussing Ward so severely that he's in a coma, which he wakes up from with "clarity". Now, the reasoning Garrett taught him and the reasoning Coulson and the team taught him fuse together, but he's trying to form thoughts of his own, so he lashes out again, from hatred of himself, of what he is. He knows he can't fix himself, so he clings to what makes sense to him: Hydra, a place of order and routine, a place with ideals, because S.H.I.E.L.D. has rejected him. Rather than addressing the problems that Ward already has, Coulson and the team fight him, because neither side will give in, neither side will ask for forgiveness or offer any help. They're on opposite sides of a bridge burned on purpose.
> 
> But Ward rose from the wreckage, didn't he? If you saw Episode 9, Maveth, then you know that he did; but you also know that he is, again, being used. And the damage done is irreparable in canon. So I'm going to try and fix it with copious amounts of fanon. Who's with me?

Mendez walked into Ward's room/hermitage and slid the door shut behind him, locking it. The shades were already pulled down and a fan softly whirred from its place on a bookshelf that was quickly being stocked with loan-turned-gifts of books from Carl. They were mostly in English, but Spanish was there, too. All of them had cracked spines and pages that had been worn fuzzy at their edges. Ward sat reading Carl's latest recommendation, one of Tolstoy's works, not at all depressing. Mendez had made him get glasses a while ago, just for reading, because he insisted on reading in such dim light it was bound to hurt his vision. Mendez reached over and turned on a lamp, angling the light over Ward's shoulder, bathing the page with its yellow glow. He sat down and opened his own book, took out his own glasses, because he hadn't listened to his mama either. Carl had a doctor checking up on her since she'd had her stroke; she was doing fine, moving more than was safe, but that was his mama: she'd survived wars and pregnancies, hours of labor with no drugs, and she'd been drinking since she was thirteen and 'times were different'. She would kill for her children. She would kill for Ward.

Mendez opened his mouth.

Ward looked up. His glasses lenses were rimless, and his eyes were magnified just a little. "What did I do?"

"Nothing."

Ward looked uncertain. "I...took my meds. And I haven't had decaf."

"I believe you."

"Is it...May?"

"No. May's kept her word."

"Did I hurt someone?"

"No, Ward. I just want to ask you."

Ward scratched behind the lens of his left eye. "Yeah?"

"The Inhumans you brought in. Remember the Little Mermaid?"

"That sounds like a war cry."

"That's 'remember the Alamo', Ward; pay attention."

"Sorry."

"It's all right. His name's Colin. He's Irish. He contacted his family and they said that he could stay here where it was safe."

"Good," Ward said, turning the page and squinting at the black print; it was starting to look smudged. Was Carl crying when he last read this? 

"He wants to talk to you."

"Why?"

"To thank you."

"It was just my job," Ward said. 

"You did a good job," Mendez replied, "which is why he wants to talk to you. And I think that you should teach a few of the recruits." He said it quickly, pairing it with another sentence in hopes that it would soften the impact. Ward turned his head away and reached up, running his fingertips over the spines of the books. "It's dusty," he said. "I need to dust this." He put his bookmark in the Tolstoy novel and let it fall on the couch, which Sayers had moved in here one day, and Ward came out of the shower to find it waiting. It was better than his old chair, the one Carl said was like a chair-version of prison. Mendez made the chair disappear the next day, but there were some strong posts supporting the pea plants in the gardens that week. 

Ward grabbed the furniture polish and a rag and rubbed the wood until it shined, and the shelf rocked back against the wall. He took down the books and dusted behind them, and when the shelf was clean he reorganized the shelf, and put away the polish and rag, grabbed his book, and started to leave the room. Mendez didn't get up from his spot. "This will be good for you." That was a trite line, Ward thought; what was he going to do? This wasn't like one of those crap movies where there's an unwilling mentor and some problematic students. They were going to depend on him to keep them safe. They were going to look up to him. Wrong. No. No. "No," Ward said, "No, no, no, no..." He started hitting the wall with his bare fist. "No. No! No! NO! NO!" Quiet down, he had to quiet down, they were going to notice, and then they'd know he was broken, he couldn't take care of them, they were going to be disappointed and he wouldn't be able to keep them safe. It was wrong. He was wrong. Broken. "NO!!"

Mendez wrapped his arms around Ward and pulled his hands away from the wall. "You're going to sit down. On the couch. Here we go, yep, good job, this way..." He settled Ward down and got the first aid kit. "Hand?" Ward crossed his arms; he was still pale from his outburst. He knew a finger was broken, maybe two. Mendez slid his fingers under the crook of Ward's arm and said, "Come on, little brother. There. Good." His touch was gentle but professional as he pulled Ward's hand closer to the light so that he could examine it. One compound fracture, the other closed. Diagnosis: nasty-looking. He said, "Well, you broke something. Feel good?" Ward shook his head. "Don't worry. We'll fix it." He set the bone and put it in a splint, made Ward take a painkiller. "You're all right," Mendez said. "You're good."

"I can't teach them," Ward said. 

"Yeah you can."

"No. You just... just saw, that I can't, and now my hand." 

"They need you."

"Don't lie."

"Then don't be stupid." Mendez's voice was tight. "You think you're the only one I teach? Only one I gotta take care of? No, there's a lot of people down there, Ward. We saved them and now they need to know how to protect themselves, and I try to do that but I. Am. Tired. Okay? Someone's gotta help me. And you've taught people before."

"I betrayed those people before."

"And then you helped them," Mendez said. "I need sleep, Ward. There's too much to do here."

"Have Carl help you."

"Carl helps Sayers. They're a pair. I need you to help me. Otherwise I'll burn myself out and you won't have me anymore." 

"...I'll only talk to them."

"Good enough. Heal up." The bulb in the lamp behind the couch flickered and went out. "Nope," Mendez said, touching his index finger to the still-hot surface. It blinked on, bright like an LED. "How you like me now?" 

"You're talking to a lamp."

"Yeah, well, lamps stick together. And you've been talking stupid, so."

"I could disintegrate you."

"Yeah," Mendez said, and a flash of light erupted in Ward's eyes, "but where am I?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Excuse me for the rant at the beginning notes. If you actually read all of that, thank you. And if you want to add anything, please comment, and I will try to get back to you. Thank you for reading the actual fanfic! xoxo


	9. "You'd Be The One Who Dies"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ward meets up with Colin, and a couple other students... Sayers decides a couple just ain't enough. Sayers and Carl exchange witty banter, and it's all very go-team.
> 
> AND THEN I MAKE YOU CRY.
> 
> (Maybe. I don't know.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All right, Mendez has become my lovely little monster. He fixes Ward, he's a doctor, AND he's a human lamp. It's awesome. I'm not bragging, I swear; I'm just having a lot of fun. 
> 
> See, I think the show's biggest problem was that the writing styles failed to mesh, so now Ward's potential as a sympathetic villain (a villain that used to be good, a villain that makes you pine for what might have been) is not fully reached. Trying to alienate us from his character, maybe in an effort to save us pain, was not the best idea. 
> 
> So when Mendez comes along it's just, "Aah... here we go". Plus, I like Ward. I'm not giving him up without giving him a fair shot. His character can really be developed. I hope I can manage to properly do that.

Ward separated the individual atoms of sweat on his palms, from the salt, to the water, to any other chemical sweat contained. He watched the sweat disappear as he made the atoms break apart, and then there was a knock on the door. He tried to calm himself, the way he usually did before using a sniper rifle: inhale, and get ready to take aim. That wasn't a good comparison. He needed something friendlier. Fluffier. Well, if they wanted fluff, they'd have to find a different person. His metaphorical fluff had gotten a buzz-cut from Garrett, as well as Ward's own stupidity. But still, they had something in common, these students, and him. Right? They were all different. 

He was willing to bet that they weren't all murderers, though. Mendez's voice started echoing in his head, about how he was young and he didn't have anyone else to teach him right from wrong until Coulson and the team, but Ward reminded himself: sure, he was young then, and he only had one flavor of hero (Garrett); but then he got old, and he knew how to separate right from wrong long before he met Coulson. He'd never tell Mendez or anyone this, but it was in that juvenile detention center where he first felt safety, where he first felt relief, and it was because he couldn't hurt anyone but himself there. He could've gone to Coulson at any time, too, after Skye had shown him how to be a decent human being even when your life was crap. The whole team had given him mental conflict simply by becoming his friends and his surrogate family. 

His actions weren't reversible; they weren't justifiable because of age or how messed up he was. Even though those arguments could be used, he wasn't about to cop out behind them. Mendez might say a little anger wouldn't be misplaced, but he was so tired of being angry at everyone, and blaming them for what they'd done wrong. So what? It was their choice if they fixed their mistakes. Just like it was his to forgive them and try to fix himself. That was enough work on its own.

So, meanwhile, there was a knock at the door, more tentative this time. 

"Ward?" Mendez opened the door and scanned the room with his eyes. His neck muscles stood out and he looked panicked for a second before he saw Ward standing by his bed, for once wearing actual clothes, and socks and shoes. Did he think Ward would be splayed on the floor, some pills scattered around him? That'd be dramatic. Instead Ward smiled because that was the action most likely to diffuse Mendez's worry. "You ready?"

"I think."

"They're downstairs. Hurry up, I left them with Sayers. See you," Mendez said before rushing off with one of Carl's duplicates. Ward put his hands in the pockets of his jacket and walked to the top of the metal staircase. A quiet conversation buzz came from down below, where a small group of students waited at a couple of the tables. Ward felt icy heat wash up and down his back in rapid succession; there was more than the five he'd imagined. There were twenty that he counted, and a couple more coming in at a fast walking pace. Some of them had backpacks slung over their shoulders. Sayers had a program set up online for those still in high school or working on degrees; but if they wanted to go to an outside facility, she could help them with that, too. Carl arranged a method of transportation, a fake identity sometimes, or just a good cover story. A lot of kids still stayed at Reception. Mendez once told Ward that they said it was because of the acceptance. They didn't "feel weird here like they did other places".

Ward walked down the stairs and thought the thump of his shoes on the stairs must have sounded like a kettledrum when it's struck. He made it to the front of the room without being noticed and tried to come up with something to say. Sayers gave him an approving look when she saw he was dressed and semi-presentable; as for herself, she wore pajama pants and a sweat shirt, and her hair was bound back in a quickly done braid. She wore glasses perched on the end of her nose. Carl sat next to her; he gestured to a cup of coffee sitting on a folding napkin. It had Ward's name written on it. (Carl's duplicates must not have gotten the memo, or else they'd all just decided to make sure that no one had any trouble figuring out whose coffee it was: Ward's name was written on the cup five times.)

They all looked so hopeful. So trusting. They shouldn't have been looking at him. Mendez was better for this; Mendez was solid and dependable, a literal beacon of light. He was the big brother of this whole group. Kids like these deserved the best Ward had; that wasn't a lot, but he did have one thing: truth. He would give them the truth of what his life was, and then he'd give them a choice to stay with him or leave and figure things out on their own terms. Their terms were likely kinder. He stared down at his shoes while he spoke, and his voice sounded bigger, because of the cement structure. "I'm the one you call Hellfire. My real name is Grant Douglas Ward." He said it carefully. "I received my Inhuman abilities through the fish-oil tablets, at a Hydra function. Hydra is an organization dedicated to a supposed order and reform to the world. It wants to pick up the slack of the world, basically. And I was a part of that."

No one was moving except Sayers and Carl, who worked on their laptops. Sayers reached over and picked up Ward's coffee, still typing with one hand. She took a swig of it and made a face before handing it back to Carl who held up his hands, exasperated. Ward said, "I was recruited at an early age by a man named John Garrett. He wanted to train me as a Hydra operative. My recruitment took place while I was in a juvenile detention facility, because I'd committed arson. I'd tried to burn down my childhood home, because it seemed like a really great idea. I also attempted to kill my brother when he was inside; I say attempted because, while I didn't know he was in the house at the time, I'd probably have gone on burning it down even if I did know."

All of the students were leaning forward, not one of them taking their eyes from him. He said, "I was in an abusive home, and I thought lashing out was a really good idea, too, so that was what I did. I placed blame on others, not all of it reasonable. It was more so that I could go on believing that I was still intact... mentally. And physically. And in general. So, I acted as an agent for Hydra, infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D., and worked under Phil Coulson, who runs the organization today. I trained Skye, who you all know as Daisy Johnson, or Quake."

"She saved me," a girl near the front said.

"She does that," Ward replied. "I betrayed them and I believed it was the right thing to do. It's what I was trained to do. I murdered one of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s operatives because he almost blew my cover. I left two more operatives to die at the bottom of the ocean, under the pretense that they stood a slight chance of figuring out how to survive. They did survive, like I thought, but one was brain-damaged, and I was imprisoned." Ward let the silence fall for a second.

"I tried to kill myself more than once. And then a situation occurred where I escaped. I was found, and Phil tried to work with me. But it didn't work out well. In fact, it resulted in the death of someone very close to me, a person I thought I could be broken around. Her name was Kara. I thought I was exacting justice on someone who I believed had wronged me, but all I managed to do was get Kara killed." He was almost done. He could feel them mulling his words over. "When Phil and I next met, I didn't care if I lived, or died, or if someone used me. I thought that if I acted on my own belief it would only result in more deaths. But then I dragged together a team: Mendez, Sayers, Carl. During the period in which I worked with Coulson, I concealed my Inhuman abilities, but eventually they were discovered. Because of that, I made a third attempt to take my life. And then, at a later period, I tried again." Now it was conclusion time. "I was trying to pay a debt. I'd betrayed people who'd shown me things that I hadn't really experienced; I was used to following orders, not taking care of people. Or being taken care of myself. But now, now I have to do this because I can't do anything else." 

He looked at them, truly, and he hoped to God he wasn't crying. "I don't know what to teach you. I'm not trying to be modest. I really have no idea. I'm not the best teacher, I'm not trustworthy, I'm barely stable. This is the most I'll talk to you all in one time. So you need to think about this, about whether or not you actually want me to teach you or tell you anything. And you should be careful if you decide you trust me, because I've been known to abuse that."

Some of them were crying, girls and guys alike. He felt twisted inside, fiendish, like he'd be reaching up to twirl the end of his mustache. "Sorry," he said. He walked to the stairs and went up to hide in his room again. He'd talked to them. A lot. It was surprising, and he felt unbalanced from it. Had that been enough? Was it too preachy? Too self-loathing? He'd probably talked too much. How was that possible, what, was he saving it all up? What an idiot. He should have stayed quiet. There should've been a question-and-answer bit. Why hadn't he let them speak?

"Mr. Ward?"

He looked up. Colin leaned in the doorway. "Come in," Ward said.

Colin took a couple steps and said, "What you said. All of it's true?"

"Yes."

"You killed people."

"A lot of people."

"Where they all bad?"

"No."

"But they weren't all good, were they? You got some bad guys."

"Yes."

"And the bad guys got you."

"Yes."

"Do you think you're a bad guy, Mr. Ward?"

Ward paused, and then said, "I try not to be."

"Are you scared of us? The Inhumans? Is that why you tried to make us hate you?"

"I'm not scared of you, I'm scared for you. And it's smart to hate me."

"I don't think so." Colin took another few steps. "You saved a lot of us. And you helped us belong."

"Mendez did that."

"You were there first, though," Colin said. "Don't argue with me, I'm Irish."

"That's magical."

"Yep. You should try our cereal." Colin flipped him off before saying, "I want you to be my teacher. I choose you. Yeah, I'm probably an idiot for doing it, but while you were too scared to teach us, Mendez showed us how to trust. So that's what I'm doing." Colin turned and looked at the books on Ward's shelf. "Well, no wonder you're suicidal. You got every bloody depressing author in the English language."

"Colin."

"What?"

"Does everyone think the same way as you?"

"Not all of 'em. Most of them, though. Lincoln and Daisy'll get the rest. I'm gonna get you some happier books." Colin shook his head at the titles. "Or maybe just melancholy, if happy isn't agreeable to you."

"Melancholy is fine."

"Melancholy Colin," Colin said. "Fun to say. When's the first lesson?"

"When do you want it?"

"I dunno, you're the teacher."

"Tomorrow." He couldn't handle another emotional throw-up. "Seven, at night. Don't be late."

"All right, then. Lookin' forward to learning." Colin held out his hand for a shake. His palm had a scattering of scales on it; they glinted like mica flecks and pyrite. Ward took it and shook. The clock on the shelf rang loudly and broke the nice moment. "Meds," Ward said. 

"Take 'em. And don't kill yourself. I like you."

"You shouldn't."

"Going to anyway." Colin flipped him off again, like he was just making conversation and ope, here's the Birdy. "Plus I've been raised Catholic so I guess I'm just attracted to pain." 

****************************

Sayers was downstairs, answering what questions Ward had left in the students' minds. Did Ward not go outside because he was still depressed? "Not for me to say," Sayers said. Ward's illness was off-limits unless he introduced the subject; since he wasn't here to drop his personal truth on them anymore, she was keeping the conversation on whether anyone wanted to stay or leave. A few decided to wait for Daisy and Lincoln, but some... some stayed. She saw Colin go up into Ward's room. The way he walked, confident, was probably what made her stay in her seat. She told Carl to leave them alone.

Colin came down again and called out, "Next session is at seven tomorrow night, don't be late."

"I like that kid," Sayers said under her breath. "Balls of steel."

"He hasn't even hit puberty," Carl said. "Don't seduce him with your mysterious allure."

"I got it. You want all this for yourself."

"Well, you could look at it that way; or you could look at it how I do, which is containing a pandemic."

"Pandemic, interesting. Things get scary when the women get confident?"

"Not really," Carl said. "But when people don't control themselves, other people end up hurt. Classic supervillain premise."

"I'm not the supervillain." Sayers paused and thought about that. "Said every supervillain ever."

"So you're a self-aware antagonist."

"That the politically correct term?"

"It will be if it's reblogged enough. Should I check on him now?" Carl watched the shadow move behind the curtains Ward had pulled down over the window; he was pacing. Or maybe trying to walk off the jitters his meds gave him sometimes. 

"Yeah," Sayers said. "I'll just be here. Luring."

"Watch her, guys." Two duplicates sat down by her. 

"I exude sensual energy; you can't block that." 

"Nope," Carl said. "I'll just deflect." In sync, the duplicates leaned in and kissed her on both cheeks. "Here, some toys."

"Shoulder massage," Sayers said. One got up and started kneading her shoulder muscles. Her head tipped back and she grinned. "If I'm the self-aware antagonist, you're the sweet one. The guy who dies. You know, build up a connection, sever it in a dramatic climax, which promptly leads to a war between each carefully defined side with big, obvious symbols that represent all they believe... Gotta admit it's a fitting profile, right?"

"Whatever you say, sugar. I think I'd be harder to kill."

"Sugar, da-da DA da da-duh, awwww, honey-honey," Sayers sang quietly. 

************************

"Nice explosion, Ward," Carl said. "Did it hurt?"

"No."

"You feel okay?"

"Better."

"Ish," Carl added.

"Yeah."

"You want some food?"

"I'll eat later."

"Okay. I'm coming by again to check."

"Fine."

"Mendez says good job."

Ward waited until Carl left and shut the door, and then he allowed a smile to appear. Before he went back to his depressing Russian literary epic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading this, and thanks to everyone who's commented. I'm really having a blast here, and you all make it that much better. If you think it'd be bothersome to comment and tell me what you think, it's totally not. 
> 
> Annoy me.
> 
> Please.
> 
> I'm needy like that.


	10. Sayers, Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sayers, and the woman she is. How did she and Carl meet Mendez? And what is her story?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't think the relationship between Sayers and Carl is romantic; they're more platonic than anything. Besides that, they have too many issues to deal with. And Sayers strikes me as a lone-wolf type of woman, a woman who's too dangerous for a romantic relationship. But I'll find something suitable for her, and maybe it'll be believable, too. 
> 
> Not sure how much of this will have to do with Ward. But most likely, we'll focus on Sayers, and she's going to be watching Ward. Or Ward could just sneak himself in there. I'm really hung up on fixing him, aren't I? Or at least giving him a reason to keep moving.

Diamond-shaped pieces of light slipped through the latticed window and struck her cheekbone, which glittered with sweat. She sat there trying to calm her breathing, and tapped out a message to Carl on her phone, sent it, and let her arm fall into her lap. The phone clunked louder than she thought it would; everything stopped as she listened. Had they heard her? Were they coming? Hydra was moving through this section, on the hunt for Inhumans. Whatever they were doing with them, she didn't want to know. But she DID have to get to them first. On another window of her phone, two red lights blinked, and quickly became three. Carl was there, now, so she'd just stall these guys. 

There was rustling on the other side of the window and someone sat down quietly. She sat up straighter, turned her phone's screen face down. "Hello, my child," said a voice. Deep, Hispanic. Former smoker? Maybe. She licked her dried lips and said, "I've never really done this before."

"Facing up to wrongdoing is always difficult."

"Of course... Father. Is it Father? Sorry, I'm sort of Baptist."

"Sort of?"

"Right now I'm a big believer in attempting not to die. I also don't drink."

"I didn't know you could make a religion out of that."

"Religion can be the thing that kills," she said. 

"That's when it's done incorrectly. And do you truly not want to die?"

"Nobody really goes looking for death," Sayers said. "Unless something's dead in them. That sound deep or what? I should write that down. Or maybe you should."

"Because, my child," the voice said. Now it was closer to the window of the confessional. "If you really did not wish to be caught, I can help you."

"What?"

"Get ready."

No one ever has any time to process choices like these. Living and dying comes down to acting on a snap decision. Sayers slid her phone into her pocket and the man on the other side of the confessional said, "One...two...three..." The footsteps outside started getting fainter: they were either in a different section of the cathedral, or they were gone. "All right, now you will go out the back door, and there will be a car waiting for you. Act casual, because it's your car, isn't it? Isn't it?"

"Yes," she said. 

"The keys will be ready. There are coordinates entered into the GPS. Drive to the location. From there it's your choice."

"What is this?"

"What do you mean?"

"I feel like a comic book hero," Sayers said. "Cloak-and-dagger crap, all these pricks trying to kill me."

"You're not a hero. You own the car outside. That's all."

"What's your name?"

"Mendez."

"I'm Sayers."

No reply from the other side. Sayers pulled back the curtain and looked out; just a few people scattered throughout the pews, praying. A couple people lit some candles before sitting down. She picked up her pair of high heels and found the back door propped open; slipping out, she saw a car parked at the curb, one that looked used. She checked and the keys were in the ignition, and a very fancy-looking GPS sat ready to go. She got it and strapped on her seat belt; before she started the car she tapped Carl's current number. As she pulled the car out into traffic, Carl picked up. "Hey. They're ready. Where're you?"

"Were you approached by some guy with a deep voice? Sounded like a telenovela?"

"No," Carl said.

"Well, then," Sayers told him, "I think I'm going to be late. Arrange different transportation."

"Fine. Don't die."

"Try my best."

"To die?"

"No, just... I was trying to be ballsy."

"Failed."

"Yep." She hung up and drove along the route, which coincidentally avoided most of the traffic. Did a route have to be mysterious in order to be quick? She'd have to make grocery store trips suspenseful. That'd be fun. Not at all crazy-cat ladyish. The route placed her at a block full of townhomes with kids riding their bikes down the street, and a guy washing his car in his driveway. A woman was actually cutting a hedge, and there was an owner and its dog having a game of fetch. Very idyllic, like someone had called "action!" and now they were all extras, desperately trying to gain notice and payment at the same time. She got out of the car, locked it, since that seemed normal and in line with the Happy Community program. 

The door had a shiny fake-gold knocker on it, and little brass numbers drilled into the wood which was a nice maroon color that worked well with the gold tint. The townhome had petite, round-edged hedges hugging the base of the house, and the lawn was cut, bordered by annuals that still looked fresh. A few lawn ornaments were there, too. Very homey. Very marketable. Sayers rang the doorbell. Inside there were resulting chimes, and then there were footsteps. The door swung open.

"Carl?"

"Sayers."

"What."

"I know."

"How?"

"Just now," Carl said. "They picked us all up."

"Did they hurt you?"

"No. Actually saved us."

"Why?"

"I don't know."

"How'd they find this place?"

Carl shrugged. "No one's being held hostage. That's all I care about right now."

She followed Carl into the kitchen and there she was greeted by loud voices talking in Greek, the sound of a mixing bowl being run, and the heat created by many people packed into the same space. There was an air freshener plugged into the wall by a spice rack that needed refilling. A dog sat on a huge bed and cats wandered the backyard that Sayers glimpsed through the back window. Two more cats prowled the halls. It all made up a terrible environment for an asthmatic, and this wasn't even the entire home. Shouts of greeting enveloped her and a short woman handed a knife to a young boy before coming to embrace Sayers. "It's about time you come home, look at all you left me with, my feet are killing me, and who is your friend?" The woman rattled all this off with a smile, and she managed to pack some pretty suspicious hope into the last part of her maybe-question. Sayers hugged her hard and pretended she hadn't heard. As she held onto the short woman, she looked at the man sitting at the cluttered table; he was skinning a cucumber and doing so slowly, like he wanted to make a good impression. Something in his eyes was not just tired, it was just-got-home-from-war, can't-talk-to-anyone-but-the-voices-in-my-head tired. The kind of tired that people tried to numb with drugs. Her eyes watered, and that freaked her out. This guy's eyes would have been dark brown if they'd had any life in them, and his hair would have looked good if it didn't seem so neglected. His clothes would have looked stylish if they hadn't seemed to be missing the mannequin they were taken from. She'd seen abandoned buildings, but this was her first abandoned person. Doubly frightening was the fact that he had the external okayness that made people look away; if people looked like he did, they must be doing well, was the general consensus. People like this were usually the ones closest to making their mouths homes for freshly fired bullets, their wrists unwitting canvases, and their veins bloody geysers. They were unknowingly poetic about their misery. Or they made other people that way. It was hard to tell. And since it was so hard to tell, people preferred to decide that there was no worry, that people of this brand of hidden misery did not have anything to be miserable about. So they were forgotten. Abandoned. "Are you okay?" she asked. He blinked. And a flicker, unsure, brief, flitting like light off of a car's windshield as it passed down the street, made him almost alive. She felt powerful. Yeah, she'd been known to spout a lot of doctrine about women's empowerment, all the rights womenkind had been deprived of for centuries, yes... but this was power. Deep, human power. It was empathy! No politics could subvert this, no opinion, no faith, no religion (the two being separate things, as Sayers was taught from a very early age... and by social media.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed that! If you did, or if you didn't, feel free to tell me, and for those of you who still like this, keep on reading!


	11. Sayers, Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I had to break this chapter into two parts because there would have been a paragraph malfunction, similar to the one that happened in Chapter One. So, for your reading pleasure, I present the second half.

She felt dizzy with power, and sat down, watching him peel the cucumber until he put it down. 

"I'm Ward," he said. "I have a job for both of you."

"Not what I asked," Sayers said. Why was she zeroing in on this? What did she have to gain? He didn't look like he would readily display any weaknesses, or any bits of information that would allow her to have some sort of advantage over him. Besides, he had backup. That man from the confessional. Telenovela man. Mendez. "Where's your partner?" she asked. 

"Partner."

"Mendez," she offered.

"He's my employee. He helped me track you down. You're elusive."

"The best women are," the woman said behind Ward.

"Mama," Sayers said. "Go check on your pasta."

"What's wrong with my pasta?"

"What's wrong is you're not checking it," Sayers said. 

"Don't speak to me that way."

"Sorry, mama. Please, just go."

"Fine."

When her mother bustled over to the stove, Carl moved to lean on the counter beside her, engaging her in conversation and thus distracting her from the one Sayers resumed with Ward. "I'm going to ask you a question. One-word answers, all right?" At Ward's nod, she said, "We were working on something dangerous. Very secret. Possibly not very legal. It has to do with something that's been on the news. My question is, are you and Mendez working on the same thing?"

"Yes."

Sayers' shoulders loosened. "Second question. Are you trying to hold my family hostage?"

"No."

"Are you just HOLDING my family hostage?"

"No."

Sayers nodded, didn't know why she nodded. Did she need to reassure herself? "If I say no to whatever proposition you have for us, will you try to kill us?"

"No."

"What about Mendez?"

"No."

"All right. You can use more than one word in your answer, here. What's your proposition?"

Ward took the knife one of Sayers' brothers handed to him and started cutting up the cucumber. "Can I ramble when I answer?"

"Long as you're not trying to stall."

Ward's mouth quirked like it wanted to smile. Then he said, as the knife cut through the vegetable and landed on the small wooden cutting board with a soft thunk, "You have a good family here. They know about what you do?"

"In a way. They know I can't talk about it. They know it's got a lot to do with. Um."

"Inhumans. It's not a swear word." Ward nudged the pieces to the side and made room for more. "It's a new culture. One that needs to be tended. You agree?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

That question was one which floored her. Why? Well, these were people who could do things the current model of people weren't capable of. People with powers, yes, and new breakthroughs of science, people who had had dormant DNA just now sprung to life; however, they were also people who had families and jobs and homes and children, cars and interests and favorite foods and favorite musics, people who were brought up in a present culture with all its present problems. But now they were a new variable. They were being watched. And they might not even be seen as people by a lot of the world, that old, present world. They might just be seen as resources, as experiments, as weapons or threats or creatures just a shade below animals, because they were different now. And then, Sayers thought about all the beliefs these people must have had, and how this change that was becoming an Inhuman was effecting them. Some were probably losing their beliefs. Others were clinging, desperately, to the prayers and doctrines they'd been nurtured in before the world they thought of as home had turned against them or had started to look at them with apprehension. Sayers herself had her own beliefs, and what she was seeing may or may not contradict what she believed. That wasn't what she was worried about. Her current job was protecting human life, something that she'd always been taught to view as deeply sacred, very valuable. Human life was a complex creation, something that in her case and in the things she'd been taught was humanity's closest resemblance to the divine. 

In her eyes, these new people were gifts. They'd been waiting to be opened all this time, and now the people from the present culture didn't want their presents. That sentence was confusing in her head, and if she'd said it aloud, things wouldn't have gotten any better. The world was a complex, beautiful, flawed masterpiece. A magnum opus. She was here to fight for its beauty. All of that sounded corny in her head. And they was no way she could say all of this.

So she just shrugged and reverted to sarcasm.

"Everyone else was doing it. Why not me?"

Ward smiled. He never seemed to mean any of the facial gestures. It was like he spent his time practicing how to move and pretend to be alive. He was a modern-day Golem. Should she capitalize that? It didn't matter. "You aren't Inhuman," Ward said. "You don't display any of the facial expressions, none of the body language. And yet you're helping what could very well be the next stage in evolution."

"Mm, evolution. Okay." 

"Did that offend you?" 

"Not really." Sayers scratched her upper lip with a thumbnail, 

"Are you religious?" 

(Inner wincing.) "I have a personal faith, yes." 

Ward nodded as though he understood. "Maybe our interests align. And now, my question: do you want to work with us?" 

"Doing what?" 

"More of what you do. On a bigger scale." 

"Trust me, it's already on a bigger scale." 

"Better financial resources. Better manpower." 

"Or womanpower," Sayers said. Her voice was wry, a word she didn't have a lot of occasion to use. "I have a good partner. What does your... employee, do?" 

"Anything I tell him. He's got his own faith," Ward added, like that might endear his cause to her. "Are you saying yes?" 

"Yes." 

Carl had been listening. So had her mother, who now shooed the rest of the children, some of whom Carl had saved, into the dining room. Her father was already in there, setting the table. Ward helped arrange the chairs so everyone had enough room. Mendez came in just then; he was a towering Latino with high cheekbones and nice eyebrows. Only guys ever got good, neat eyebrows, Sayers thought, slightly pissed off. She sat down by Mendez while Carl was paired with Ward. Carl nodded to him and held out his hand as everyone's heads bowed in prayer. The dinner passed with a lot of laughter, a lot of stories, a few obligatory references from Sayers's parents as to the state of her singleness, and then after desert there were attempts to enlist Sayers into doing the dishes. 

"It's impolite not to listen to your parents in the presence of company." 

Ah, yes. Precious company. Sayers stacked some plates and tugged a few of the boys--foster kids her mother and father had taken in, one of them Inhuman--into the kitchen to help. Her father tried to sit down but she pulled him along with her. "Just because you're a man doesn't mean you can't help with the cleanup." 

"I wasn't raised like this." 

"No, papa," Sayers said, "you were raised in the age that defined women as baby dispensers. Very smart. Best idea." She could talk with her dad like this, a lot more than she could with her mother. It was hard to ignore, all the things that women were denied. She remembered wanting to be so many things that people told her were for boys. She remembered not being on sports teams, and then losing interest in sports and then in other girls her age. He didn't know about those memories, her father, but he did know that she was strong, she was responsible, and she was not going to give up on something once she'd made up her mind that it was true. That made her feel good, a simple term of emotion, something that made her feel doubly happy because she rarely had the luxury of terming her feelings as such. 

"You're being raised in an age that defines men as boys and women as on their own," her papa said. "And now you're going away again, and your mama's gonna have all these questions that I don't know answers to, and then you'll just appear. There--gone--there--gone. It's not good for me. I'm old. Give your own explanations." 

"I'm a walking explanation," Sayers said grandly. 

"Your mama'd say you're a walking terror." 

"But of course." Sayers dried the last plate and stacked it, lifting it up before her father could do it for her, sliding it into the cupboard and shutting the door. "Dad?" 

"What?" 

"Trust me. I'm okay." 

"How do I make your mother believe that?" 

"Don't make her." 

"Where are you going next?" 

"Um. New employment. Secretive person." 

"Write to me. Or e-mail." 

"Or carrier pigeon," Sayers said. "You never know, I might go full-on hipster. Or Amish." 

She hugged her father and said, "Thank you, daddy." Behind them, Carl made an "aww how cute" face and Sayers curled her hand into a fist. Her father's lips pressed the top of her head. "You come back to us. I'll pray for you." 

They always did. Oddly comforting, to think of this. She let him go and then changed from Sayers the daughter to Sayers, woman, walking disaster. Smart. Dangerous. Beautiful. Possibly arrogant... Definitely confident. She walked the line between the two and she did so precariously. Like she was a comic-book hero. In a time when new people were brought into existence, and some of them were good, some of them bad, heroes needed to pray. They all needed to say yes. 

Thank God she was here, then.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There it is, and hope you enjoyed it! Feel free to comment and thank you for reading! xoxo


	12. Power Struggle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We learn more about the nature of Ward's illness, and a new threat is introduced. There's also a new possibility that could either be seen as salvation, or as a curse. 
> 
> More about Carl, probably.
> 
> Oh, and May's back. I might bring Daisy in, too. Yeah, she'll probably be there... and Simmons...
> 
> You know what, reunion with most of the team. This is going to be fun, now that I think about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've got some good news, everybody! I found out how to fix the paragraph malfunction: you have to enter in the paragraph breaks and all the dialogue spacing manually. It's a little extra effort, but at least the story won't look weird anymore.

Ward got up each day with a slightly different schedule. He still had to take his medication, and Mendez still hounded him about food and whether he'd gotten his exercise in, but there were classes to teach. The classes were more like lectures with question-and-answer sections. Sometimes students offered up their personal experiences and Ward sat there and listened, hoping that doing so didn't unnerve them. They were still coming, so that was good... Mendez took care of the written tests, and arranged trips to S.H.I.E.L.D. the way a teacher might arrange a trip to the planetarium. Ward actually managed one trip that month, but once they came back he had a hard time coming out of his room.

"You sure you want to come with us next time?" Mendez asked.

Ward nodded. He tried to focus on his book. Again, it was a Russian author, one of the classics. The fact that the author's characters seemed to be having a better time than he did was, as Sayers might put it, very sad. But his reading selection was something else that had changed; Colin made sure to bring him graphic novels, science fiction, regular fiction that was currently popular, and some fantasy. It was in this way that he discovered Scott Pilgrim, Ray Bradbury and Isaac Asimov, a few good short stories from Andre Dubus III (though he was, as Colin had promised, a bit melancholy), and how he read stories like the Chronicles of Narnia, Harry Potter, and some other fantasy by authors like Patrick Rothfuss, Brandon Sanderson, Cornelia Funke, and Ann Ursu. The spines on Ward's bookshelf brightened with eye-catching colors, and the reading selection widened to poetry, nonfiction, biographies and autobiographies, contemporary fiction and romance from the Victorian era, classical fiction... until one day Ward came in and found that Colin had assembled a new bookshelf for him. The old one had been filled up, books situated like Tetris blocks to allow for more space.

He focused on the files just as much as before, tracking down new Inhumans, arranging escapes, transportation and financial assistance. Carl was gone a lot more, but when he was at Reception he helped with the more active segments of teaching the students, and cloned himself to help tutor some of the kids or grownups who were having difficulties with their studies--and that wasn't always focused on Inhuman activity, or the many different kinds of powers that Simmons was working with Carl and Sayers to catalog and analyze. Sayers started hinting at preparation for Ward's birthday, which he hadn't noticed was coming up. How old would he be? A couple students had actually teased him about gray hair; he didn't have gray hair. Did he? 

Birthdays were celebrated with regularity at Reception. A few students even invited their families, which would lead to a tour of the facility, on a route that showed them some of the facility but not sensitive areas. Carl was careful about things like that. But Ward's birthday was usually associated with something unpleasant in his head; one, because he paired every good thing in his life with something bad, and two, because in this case he was right. His yearly physical was scheduled right around his birthday. Mendez always made sure he went. The closer his birthday drew, the more Sayers skulked around Reception and the more Ward's students giggled secretively. Carl shooed him out of rooms and shushed the younger kids when they seemed about to slip up and reveal part of the celebration plans. It sounded like it was going to be big, whatever they had planned.

Two days before his birthday-- Ward had bothered to look it up on his calendar after letting the question nag him an entire afternoon-- there was a knock on his door that didn't have Mendez's rhythm to it. Ward took a gun out of its hiding place, made sure it was loaded, and stood behind the door as he opened it a crack. May stood there, gun already drawn. She started walking to the stairs without saying a word; he knew where he was supposed to go. Mendez was waiting on the stairs so he could send some encouraging expressions to Ward.

"Daisy's here," Simmons said. Like she was bracing him for it.

"Oh." He walked inside and kept his head down. She said hi, but he could only nod. 

"What's wrong?"

"Tired," Ward said. (And the last time they spoke, she'd sounded like she was forgiving him.) "Why are you here?"

"We've learned something new about your power," Daisy said. "It might be directly related to your illness."

"...what?"

"You remember back in Italy," Simmons said, taking the lead, "when you threw yourself in the ocean?"

He gave her a look like, 'yeah, stupid'.

"Well, along with a feeling of being overheated, you retained your powers so long it caused your mind to deteriorate. The cells that produce all your thoughts, and the ones that trigger emotions, all of them experienced damage. These are from your last visit." Simmons guided him to a laptop set up with some other medical equipment on a table. "Results from your DNA samples. Your brain scans. See these areas?" She motioned to a region of his brain that looked oddly disordered. "This is only slightly similar to what happens to people with Alzheimer's. Combined with post traumatic stress and all your other psychological issues, your brain was like tissue paper."

"Can't he just re-form it?" Mendez said from the doorway.

"I wondered the same thing. I've run some theoretical tests," Simmons said. "And maybe. But it would require a lot of concentration. And it might take you a very long time. It would be highly impractical."

"I'm still moving, though."

"Yes. Your muscle memory is still intact. And your memory has suffered little of the impact. Still, the combined effect of your preexisting mental issues with that of your power's manifestation..."

"Donate your body to science," May said. Simmons gave her a helpless look. 

"Telling me about what can probably not be undone doesn't help," Ward said. 

"It wouldn't. Except." Simmons opened a new file. "I think there is a slight possibility that we could help you regain the... missing parts. It could remove your mental illness. You wouldn't be dependent on anyone for your well-being."

Ward flicked a glance at Mendez, who said, "But?"

"You might. This is theoretical, remember. You might lose your powers."

Lose his illness, the thing that impeded his usefulness to the team, or lose his power, part of what made him useful to the team. Still, if his power was causing the illness, maybe that would be better: just getting rid of it. On the other hand, his power was pretty useful, and extraordinary, if you believed anyone who had seen him use it. He could cope. He had Mendez. 

But Mendez was tired. Maybe he would remove two burdens at once. And Sayers wasn't Inhuman, but she helped in a lot of different ways. She was vicious and strong and she had a lot more control than he did. What would be the harm in removing what was a power, yes, but what was also a problem? Detrimental? He looked at the screen, all the statistics. It was too much to think over in this room. He needed time. 

"I don't know," he said to Mendez. 

"Do what you want, little brother. But your illness is not a flaw. Understand?" He said this to the whole room. "You've done fine, dealing with this. You've made it work. Thinking that something like this serum that MAYBE could work, thinking that it could make you a better person? Stupid. Okay? It is your choice. Do you feel good about it?" 

"I'm sorry." Simmons looked at Ward. 

"Why?" Ward felt more confused than he had all month. Mendez was sticking up for him, these people he'd wronged. Now they were trying to be helpful. He was the one who couldn't decide whether he wanted to be selfish or productive. And they were all watching him with mixed emotions, or in May's case, none at all. Simmons said, "I didn't mean to insult you." 

"You didn't. You told the truth." 

Simmons seemed about to say something else, but instead, she motioned for him to get on the observation table. Mendez didn't leave the room, but he made sure May and Daisy did. There was little pain in the whole process of the physical. Ward did have to step into the makeshift urinal and pee into a cup, which was more embarrassing than anything. "Least you got it into a cup this time," Mendez said. Ward didn't get the joke. 

***************************** 

His birthday was big, just not very big. There was a cake. And he was blocked off from escape, so he had to endure all the birthday traditions that Sayers apparently had. Carl gave him a whole stack of new books, and a second stack came from Colin. A few of the students had made him some food. One of the more flippant recruits gave him a pack of razors with a can of shaving cream. Another one tried to give him some medical marijuana but Mendez got up and ushered the gift and its giver out the door. They heard him yelling all the way down the hall. 

Daisy and May were there for his birthday, and Daisy asked if they were welcome. Mendez said it would be better if they stayed away; Ward was already pretty agitated. "Tell Ward Coulson wants to meet," Daisy said. Mendez threw his arms in the air for a second before letting them flop down at his sides. 

"It's his birthday. Leave the man alone." 

"It's about Hydra," Daisy said. 

"A lot of things are." 

"They're moving." 

"And?" 

"There's going to be a civil war," Daisy said. "We need everyone you can spare." 

"You think that's Ward? Like we have substitutes? Really." Mendez shook his head. "Tell Coulson, that I will ask Ward. And if he says no, that means no." 

"Just say no for him," Daisy said. "You're his nurse." 

"I? Am his FRIEND. Both of you? Are part of the reason that Ward needs a 'nurse'. No one was around for him in the first place and if you try to mess up his birthday I swear you'll both be blind. We're not talking about this anymore, not today. So, do either of you want some cake?" 

"You owe me twenty bucks," May said. 

Mendez looked up from setting out slices of cake. 

"I didn't think he'd go full bull-dog," said a voice in the hall. Coulson stepped into the kitchen. "I'd like some cake?" 

"You see where it is, sir." 

"You don't have to call me sir." 

"Ward did." 

Carl came in at that moment, heard what Mendez said, and walked by Coulson, going, "Oooooohhhh..." 

"So you're here. Means this is actually important?" 

Coulson spoke around a little bit of the cake. "Yes. And I know what you think of me, and my team, but we've been very respectful of your wishes. I've made do without Ward a lot of times, times when having him around would have made things easier?" 

"What things?" Carl said. "Hypocrisy? Lectures on right and wrong? Wait, no. Imprisonment." 

"Carl," Mendez warned. 

"You were JUST doing this," Carl said to Mendez. "Screw them. Making Ward an asset can happen after you say sorry. You don't get to come and use him like a tissue, no, nope... nope. Respect him for once, because he's the one who was willing to make amends. Until that happens on your end, you have no right to talk about respect like you know what it is." Carl took Coulson's cake and threw it in the trash. "And you do not get to eat my cake." 

Wherever this had come from, it obviously had been pent up. Carl cleared his throat and said to Daisy, "You, I like. Have some cake. You, I can tolerate." (This to May.) "Have some cake. You, don't come in the room unless Mendez says it's okay." 

All that needed to happen now was to give Carl a microphone to drop. Mendez kind of felt like he wanted to applaud. 

Ward came in slowly. He looked at Mendez with sheepish eyes. Carl saw that look and said, "You heard everything." 

"Sorry." 

"Stop...saying...sorry," Carl said. 

"How much coffee did you have?" May asked. 

"I get high off the universe," Carl told her. "And I've had a pot of it to myself. Been a good day." 

"Tomorrow," Ward said to Coulson. "I'll talk to you tomorrow." 

Coulson wanted to protest, but Mendez looked at him. He nodded. 

"Thank you for coming," Ward said to Daisy and May. 

"Happy birthday," Daisy said. 

She meant it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's the latest! Hope you enjoyed! If you did not, inform me. Discussions are what I thrive on.
> 
> Or I might sink into denial.
> 
> You never know.
> 
> But at least try to find out, because, well, curiosity is not a sin. As someone wise once said.


	13. Sleepy Blue Feeling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ALL RIGHT! SO I AM BACK! 
> 
> Here's what I hope will happen: First, we go to Ward. Then, we leave him fragile but loved. And then, I hope, we will be in a position to leave him with his fam. And Coulson's gonna be answering for some stuff. He gets this shot, in my opinion, because he's Coulson. Gotta give him at least one chance.
> 
> Now, I know I've been dormant but don't worry, I'll at least finish this. Enjoy and comment if you wish to

A house teetered on Ward's coffee table. It was made of books. It was built around a piece of birthday cake he'd brought up with him and had then forgotten about until it was stale. He would have eaten it after knocking down the house, but May came in and sat down. She glanced at the house and up at him, both actions fleeting and expressionless. He took his books down and when she saw the cake she pursed her lips, but her face soon smoothed itself out. May waited while Ward put his books back on his shelves before she finished lacing up her running shoes. Running: that was what she wanted. Ward understood. This was what he had to do for her. With her, in another context. He changed and put on a jacket, felt like his shoes were maybe pinching the sides of his feet, and left a note for Mendez that he had taken his meds. May led him outside, into the coolness of the morning, everything a sleepy blue color and every smell intensified from the crispness. At this time of day the world gave the gift of quiet, of solitude, maybe of clarity. Ward put up his hood and watched a bird flit from a branch that was left to wobble back to stillness; the bird disappeared up onto the roof. Leaves whispered on the wall. May was waiting.

The door opened with a metallic creak, and two men stepped out. Mendez. Coulson. Ward stepped behind May while he collected himself. Mendez walked around May and took Ward by the arm, turning him away, asking in a soft voice, "You okay, little brother?" The urge to curl in on himslef and ride out the feeling on his own passed over Ward as he nodded once so that Mendez would let go. May started them off at her pace and remained there until it looked like she would outstrip them and make the corner before they could. Behind Ward, Mendez turned and Coulson slowed his pace, letting Mendez hurry to catch up to May, if he could. One could dream. May was waiting for him; she handed him her water bottle when he got there. Mendez might have sniffed at it because of his principles, but to have principles you needed to be able to breathe, and you needed to be hydrated. So he bit down on his pride and swigged from the bottle. It felt important, since May was not the sharing kind. She didn't swap spit with anyone she didn't want to, by any medium. This wasn't a romantic gesture AT ALL, but rather a gesture of respect. Something more material, visual, and potent. 

Coulson initiated the conversation. "We've been tracking Hydra activity around the main base. Surges of movement from all known areas, some unknowns as well. Could be a meeting, could be a showdown. Either way, casualties."

"Why do you need me?" Ward asked.

"You know them," Coulson replied.

"You're tracking them."

"You were on board with this yesterday.'

"Yesterday we weren't jogging buddies." Ward's eyes started to hurt from the strain of looking forward, for Mendez. Coulson wanted to insinuate himself into Ward's life. It felt like this happened every time Ward started to show signs of thriving, repairing his life to make it something marginally functional. And since it was early in the morning, since the solitude and quiet and sleepy blue feeling had all been disrupted... Ward was a tad pissed off. The feeling had long been in waiting. He felt a little ashamed of it, even now. But come ON, this was Coulson. Coulson wasn't stupid. He had been kind, trusting, loyal, lovable, someone Ward could have respected, the mentor Ward wished for instead of Garrett, because that would have meant he wouldn't be holding people back and making good guys like Mendez feel like they needed to pretend to be his friend to push him to be productive. An asset to be monitored, he knew that's what he was, that that was the function he was meant to serve, and he was trying to make sure he did his job and helped other people do their jobs. That was a lot of work; he couldn't do it all by himself. Mendez needed to help him, but Mendez was tired, and everyone else was tired and busy, but Ward was trying. That should have done something. A tiny bit. But Coulson was here, expecting more, in such a casual way that Ward glimpsed Garrett.

Coulson needed to be saved from that.

"I'm sorry for what Carl said to you," Ward said.

Gravel and dirt crunched as their shoes smacked on the path. "You don't need to apologize," Coulson said. It was an old phrase that only someone like Coulson could pull off without making it sound clunky. "I wouldn't. Probably good, that you're not with me anymore."

"I'd get in the way," Ward agreed. "Still, Carl was taking things too far. You just need to do your job. I'll do mine. Things'll get done." 

Coulson was panting. Ward felt okay. The light was more orange, reddish and yellow. Above, the sky was light-light-light blue, with wispy clouds nestled in the apex. Some of the recruits were out doing the watering for the plants, and some were exercising or heading off to school or work. Ward imagined them putting the party remains out by the door in two separate types, trash that could only be trash, and trash that could be turned into compost. Forever useless, or useful only when turned to dirt, something most people typically equated with being just shy of worthless. 

"I've got a good team on my side. Your team does exemplary work. I'm glad I can be used as an asset."

"Pretty clear-- that that's not what you are," Coulson panted. Ward had to unscramble the words in his head before he understood them. "You're a leader. You're a founder, of something useful, something people need. Daisy trusts your advice the most. Your intel. It makes Simmons and Fitz jealous." They were running slower now, far from the buildings. Soon they would have to turn back, so that Ward could help get things ready, make it down to breakfast so that Mendez didn't go off on him about needing to eat. "Then, there's your power. Know how many ways Simmons has calculated you could turn that to your advantage?"

"Multiple."

"She's still calculating." Light caught the beads of sweat trembling on Coulson's face, hanging from his chin. How out of shape was he? Wasn't he part robot? "Your power isn't the only thing about you that's important."

"Mendez told you to say that."

"No, but if I sounded like him, that wouldn't be a bad thing." Coulson put his hands on his hips and leaned back, blowing out a gust of air before he went on, looking at the sky while he talked. "You have full support from your team, admiration, I'm willing to bet. I'd even guarantee it. Maybe they're your friends. And the people you've saved, those people, Ward, that's why you're important."

"I'll help you with Hydra," Ward said, trying to draw the conversation to a close. "I'm sorry for complaining."

"Carl was right," Coulson said, "stop apologizing. I'm sorry, Ward. For all of it. I'm sorry my team wasn't behind you, that I wasn't behind you. I'm glad you have something here that you can take care of, because it can take care of you too. I'm glad you have friends. But I just need your help."

"I said I'd give it. You don't have to," Ward waved at the air with his hands. "You don't, sir."

"I really, really do, though. Because here's the thing," Coulson told him. Looking at him. Noticing him. It felt a little bit like Garrett but then it wasn't. This was Coulson. Trusting Coulson, the one who could be taken in by someone with a cleanshaven face and dark puppy-dog eyes and an injured past accentuating the present pain; Coulson, who would outbid every supervillain and billionaire for a piece of vintage whatever to add to his collection of what once was. He was Coulson who sat in a room of reminders, the leader of an organization with ideals that many now overlooked in favor of something more cutthroat and modern. "Don't ever factor in whether or not you're going to be useful to someone else before you think about getting rid of your power. Do you understand this, Ward, because you need to. If it's what you want, you do it. Otherwise?" Coulson shook his head. "I think it would be a bad idea if you ended up like me."

"Yes, sir."

"Good. We never mention this to anyone. Just remember it."

They ran back to the buildings and, once inside, went to opposite ends.

********

Mendez was a man of light, and when shadows passed over where he cast his glow, it made him glow brighter to see what was wrong. Or, if he talked like a human being, if it was about to hit the fan he wanted to try and track down the source. Maybe stave things off. You never knew. And a lot of the time he could shine his brightness and fix it. He could be the trope sassy ethnic sidekick meets Mary Poppins, fixing things, mouthing off in carefully scripted tantrums. But then he went off on his own. And he got needy.

So Ward avoiding him was like waving a huge bag of cocaine at an addict and going, "hey, want some drugs? how 'bout drugs? I know you want to be clean but first what about", and then the continuation of the avoidance made him want to pin Ward down and interrogate him. That would be... worse than oversharing. He could live with it though. Maybe now live it DOWN, but live with it. Ward kept his face turned from Sayers and Carl, trying to do his work with his eyes nearly shut at certain points when being in their presence was absolutely necessary. The kids gave him space, probably got away with a lot when he lectured them. Ward let them leave his class half an hour earlier than usual. As the children scattered to their various corners, Ward went up to his room and shut the door. A moment later the door opened and Colin stepped out. 

Ward didn't come out for the rest of the week. Through the door, which was stuck somehow, Mendez told him to bathe and eat and drink, take his meds and sleep. Colin left a book by the door each day. At the end of the week there was a stack, and then the door opened. The books were taken. A lot of dirty dishes were placed out in the hall. Carl looked disgusted and picked up the load gingerly, talking in a voice that sounded like a reporter from a 40s film tryin' to get the scoop. "Who's gonna do all these dishes, that's what I wanna know, is it gonna be me? Me? Well golly if this isn't rich, someone oughta explain themselves." 

Another week went by before Ward opened the door a crack and stepped out. "Mendez."

Oh crap. Crap. That voice was imported from his mama's mouth. The one meaning, trouble. Spankings. Doom. Destruction. Inability to sit down after the punishment was administered.

"yes?" he said. small voice.

"Come up here please."

CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP.

"Sayers and Carl, you too."

Crap on a cracker.

"I want to dispense with euphemisms and cut straight to the swearing, see?" Carl said. Ward didn't smile. 

They sat in a row on Ward's couch, which still felt warm from where he slept. His dirty sheets were bunched on the floor by the side of the couch. Ward himself looked like the crap the maggots avoided because it was bad neighborhood. "What's your function in this team?" Ward asked.

"I'm your monitor, the doctor, and a teacher," Mendez said.

"I'm tech, transportation, and femme fatale," Sayers said.

"I glitter," Carl said.

"Astute observation," Sayers murmured.

"Self-awareness is my curse."

"I'm an asset," Ward said. "That's my assigned function. That's what I do. If you need me for more, then that's what I do. It's my job." His eyes were confused. "You call me your friend? Why would that... you do that, why do you?" He smiled but it was painful. Smile that meant, yes, he was okay, but really, he wasn't okay. It was angst-y and ill-fitting.

"It's the truth."

"No."

"Yes," Carl said. Sayers nodded.

"No," Ward said. "That's. Why're you lying?" His eyes skated over them like he was trying to find something that made sense. He was lost in his own room. "This isn't necessary. I can still function when I work and you don't need to pretend to be close to me. I don't need to be placated. This isn't necessary. It isn't necessary."

"Why not?" Sayers said. "Don't interrupt me, I'm gonna do a tirade. Why can't you have friends? Your life up to this point has been fairly sucky. Now you say, nope, friends be evil because I must brood. Let me grow my five-o'clock shadow in the dark of midnight, or better still, my own self-induced darkness. Why, in the course of your life, is there not a section where you can forgive yourself? Meaning, you don't sink into denial and try to cover your mistakes."

"He did that," Carl pointed out.

"Yes! He DID! Thank you, Carl."

"Charmed and glittery."

"Then he made up for it." Mendez stared at Ward so hard Ward felt like he was trying to fix him with his eyes. 

"You can't. No," Ward talked over them. 

"You don't get to choose," Carl said. Sayers high-fived him. 

"Why do you think I call you little brother?"

Ward didn't know. He didn't know. He sat down. He still didn't know. Mendez made him eat something before he took the laundry out and Carl cleaned his room. Sayers bullied him into the shower and waited outside the curtain, singing songs from musicals to serenade him. These were things that friends did. Maybe family. Ward hadn't had any positive experiences with family, but the friend thing, well... he'd had a dog. Someone else was probably taking care of it.

His team. Friends? 

No.

yes.

please, yes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you liked it! Feel free to comment


	14. The Original Carl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are many versions of Carl. 
> 
> Here's the beginning. How he met Sayers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: THERE BE DARKNESS IN THIS CHAPTER, INCLUDING REFERENCES TO RAPE, GORE, DESCRIPTIONS OF SUICIDE, POSSIBLE REFERENCES TO MENTAL ILLNESS
> 
> IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO READ THIS, MOVE ALONG BUT TAKE THIS PIECE OF INFORMATION WITH YOU SO YOU DON'T GET DE-RAILED IN THE STORY: CARL MET SAYERS AND SAYERS WAS TOLD OF THE ONE THING THAT CARL MUST NEVER DO, THE THING THAT COULD BREAK HIM. BRING ALL HIS SELVES INTO HIMSELF, AND HOLD HIMSELF IN, WHICH I WILL DO MY BEST TO EXPLAIN IN THE REST OF THE STORY. ORIGINAL CARL IS NOT A GOOD CARL. AND HE WILL VERY LIKELY MAKE AN APPEARANCE AS THE STORY DRAWS CLOSER TO THE END.
> 
> OKAY GO WITH GOD!

"You could be the guy who dies..."

That's what Sayers had said. He had been. He'd died by the hand of others, at fast and slow paces, on video camera, on record as a breakthrough of science; he'd died by his own hand, jumping off buildings and bridges, opening his veins, shooting himself, drinking drain cleaner or bleach, getting hit by a car, hanging himself, on and on and on until he was an expert on death, especially the self-administered kind. He could dispose of someone in under a minute, corpse and all. He'd composed suicide letters for himself, for other people who requested it, the people who had formed pacts with him. The guy who died, over and over, so often that he made the process of it a little bit like driving up to a fast-food window and waiting for the meal to be handed through. He'd learned languages, written poetry, books, articles, all on many topics and spanning multiple genres, pissing off famous critics simultaneously. He had earned doctorates, pissed off doctors of the fields he'd studied, and then he'd built things. Skyscrapers donated to charities, money used to build houses in under-privileged parts of the world, scholarship funds set up to keep the dreamers educated, and parties that made the tabloids. On one occasion he remembered cutting a ribbon at a ceremony before driving to his penthouse and running a bath; he waited for it to get nice and foamy before he settled his head against the folded-up wash cloth, and dropped the toaster he'd plugged in into the water. 

He was in all parts of the world, at all times, if he wanted to be. Money was like toilet paper. It was boring to give away. He felt decadent and ashamed of how little he depended on other people to survive. He felt disposable, but like he was still something that people had to pay for. A tampon with legs. So he got bored, and more bored, and lethargic, until he finally disposed of himself, bequeathing the bulk of his funds to another one of his selves who was in another part of the world doing something more interesting. Carl was wanted by the police. Carl was wanted by the drug cartels. Carl was wanted by the mob. Carl was a stripper. Carl was a college dean. Carl was a reporter whose head was severed for reasons unknown; the people of that country were just feeling in need of it? Carl was a ballet dancer, a perfomer in a community theater, a painter, a slam poet, a hipster, a bodybuilder. He was comatose. He was alone. 

and BORRRRRRRRRRRRED.

Then Sayers. Continually interesting. Naive in some areas then hardened in others. Her political stance: skeptical, flexible. She was at the same bridge he was, on a night when it was snowing and the streetlamps glowed, making orange halos in the misty air as flakes drifted down. They were on a stone bridge, the night was growing late, and far off they heard bells tolling. Somewhere people went home or to work, somewhere they hunkered down in the snow and waited for the night to pass and leave them alive. Her head was bowed, and she watched the water swirl slowly under the bridge and out from under its arch. Snowflakes stuck in her hair and still she stood, hands just touching the railing's edge, puffs of breath coming from her mouth. Finally she looked up and at the picturesque spires and buildings of old brick, the cobblestone streets and warm light from the shops. People milled up and down the streets in a mix of tourist and locals. They looked small from here. 

"Are you cold?" he called to her.

She turned and smiled. "No," she said in English.

He switched from his Hungarian and said, "You're here on a pretty night."

"I must look like I have no idea what I'm doing."

"You're stopping. That's something. Stopping to look. Snow like this? It's pretty amazing. I could go on about it."

"Do you want to?"

"What?"

"Are you genuinely interested in snowflakes, or are you trying to get up my skirt? Which by the way was a poor fashion choice, since it's tit-freezing weather."

"My tits commiserate with yours."

Her smile was genuine. And unless he'd gotten extremely drunk one night and decided to make one of his selves into a woman, she was the only one of her. Which made that smile rare. Interesting. He turned fully to the diversion she presented. "You're from America?"

"Yeah, I'm from the US. You look rich, if you don't mind me saying."

"I like honesty."

She nodded. "Sayers. Who're you?"

He gave her his real name. Carl. They went to one of the warmly lit shops and had coffee and pastries, talking about snowflakes, books, music, travel, and then about current events, because people in coffee shops somehow always get around to that topic. The topic of Inhumans came to the surface. She was approving of the new kind of human. He approved of this, probably gaining some lost humanity back. He invited her to his house, amending his words when he saw her reaction, making a point of saying that it was just a friendly visit. "I'm honestly not in the mood for anything else." And that was a stupid thing to say. But bored people say stupid things, stupider than usual.

"Well, if you don't like me as a new pet, feel free to return me. You kept the receipt, right?"

"I didn't mean it like that."

"You did. But it's fine. We're all idiots. You just had a crowning moment of idiocy." She smiled and took a drink of her coffee. "This is going to keep me up for a thousand years, isn't it?"

"Yeah."

"I'm used to not being able to sleep by now."

He paused. "Are you?"

"Jet-lag. I'm on the go a lot. Part of my job."

"I'm... just unlucky with sleep, I guess. Have been for a while." And then he smiled. And drank all of his coffee. Because, screw it. Wouldn't make a difference anyway. His migraine was getting worse, and he didn't have any pills on him. He'd have to go down to his lab and make some more. Legal prescription painkillers, even the ones a doctor could acquire, weren't strong enough to dull the pain of these suckers. One theory was rapid brain growth; his condition probably made his brain need to use more of itself. He was trying to keep the Self-Count down-- he'd just ended twelve of his lives-- but that didn't feel like it was helping. He felt wrong. Part of his mind had closed off from him. He would look into that later, after he'd made sure Sayers got home safe. 

"You're such a sad person," she said, while they were waiting for a cab she had chosen over the car he had offered to send her home in. "All this money and you latch on to what you can't buy. I'm like a new pet gerbil to you."

"No," Carl said. It was one of the only times he was truly serious during the course of their relationship. The second time would come soon. "I want you to be my friend. But I really, really want you to want to be my friend. If you don't, I couldn't blame you, because." He held out his arms. He was rich, he looked it, a vast percentage of the world hated people like him who had money to staple back onto the trees. 

"You look bored, too," Sayers said. "Like you need something to do."

Carl didn't contradict her.

"Maybe we can work together." The cab pulled up and she opened the door before the driver or Carl could get it, chucking her bag in. "If you're interested, I'm sure you'll find me."

"How do you know?"

"Just something about you." She looked at him. Waited for him to understand. 

"You can tell?"

"I know what to look for." The cab drove away. He put his hands in his pockets and winced when the pain jabbed the base of his skull. He called his car and had the driver break almost every traffic law to get him home. Carl told the driver to go home for the night before he ran inside his house, the door shutting and locking and arming itself as he'd designed it to do; he went to his basement and, squinting through the waves of pain, made a dosage of his pills. He took it dry and shut his eyes, sitting down on the floor, kicking off his shoes.

He opened his eyes and stared into a different version of his face. This one smiled to bare its teeth, asserting dominance. "Pain in your head," he said. His own voice coming back to him. "That's cool. What else is cool, is this, right here. Lookit," the other Carl said. "Pretty." He held up one of the pills and said, "You're really trying to shut me down. I thought we were an all-in-one."

Carl felt like he should put his shoes back on and run out of the house. He couldn't get to the shoes. But he did run. He didn't want to look behind him but there was a pull, like looking down over the edge of a high building and getting the faint urge to step over the railing and let your body be free in the air even if it fell. When he turned the other him was at the bottom of the staircase, loping up the steps, with his teeth displayed, neck muscles bulging, eyes... Carl knew they were his but whatever was inside them wasn't. He hoped not. Carl tried to shut the door on himself but it just got kicked in, part of it coming off in a huge splinter that clattered on the hardwood of the main floor. A hand grabbed his arm and said, "You know, you haven't seen what you could do. You haven't looked around. This is it, all you care for, a nice house, some basic necessities. But you don't know. Come and see."

Carl wet his pants. A trickly yellow stink seeped out of his pant leg and pooled on the floor. The other him smiled again, this time patronizing, like a grown-up soothing a child in a way that soothed but made the child feel stupid. "Come with me. You're gonna come with me. Then we'll have a look. It's taken me a while. I'm not very good at the reversal yet, not an expert, but I'm pretty okay at it. I've got a few of us." This was the line of small sentences the other him recited as he got Carl some new pants, some new shoes, and helped him find the keys to his car, pouring him some tea which Carl put in a to-go mug because they would be driving. His other self held the door open for him and then gave him directions to a house that looked like it was meant for a young family, with little plants and things that would bloom in the spring, summer, and fall. The other him helped him out of the car and let him into a house that was furnished in fairly new furniture. 

"Now my basement. Keep your tea on you, you'll get thirsty. Or bring it for me. I always need a drink after." He led the way down into his basement. It was finished. Nicely arranged. Most of the living was done down here.

The other him showed him around the fair-sized living space, and Carl nodded, pretending to pay attention, wondering why he wasn't crazy enough to run. Get out. Run. Because, he realized: there was something worse. And the part of him that had helped to create this other him wanted to see it. That side was hungry for it. The other him went to a door with a thick chain and a padlock, took out a key and said, "You ready? Got the tea? Okay, come on." The padlock was undone, the chain slid off, and the other him held it in one hand as he opened the door with the other, a door that looked heavy enough to creak like a castle gate but one that opened silently. Soft electrical buzzing came from inside. The other him beckoned him into a room with rectangular overhead lights guarded by wire cages. The light from them shined down onto a shelf stocked with books, a table and chair, an area rug, a TV with a video game system and Blu-Ray player with surround sound speakers, a La-Z-Boy recliner chair, and a bed. There was a door that was shut, saying BATHROOM in stenciled letters across the outside, in small neat script. It needed to be opened by entering a code on the keypad attached to the doorknob. 

On the bed, Carl was sleeping. He woke up and saw Carl, and then the other him. His eyes filled with tears. He started to shake. 

"Don't worry," the other him said. "I won't leave you for so long next time." He reached out a hand and pushed the Carl on the bed's hair back. "Found another one. He was just right there. I think this is working out great." To Carl with the tea, he said, "Let's watch a movie."

"I'm good. Why's he chained up?"

"He thinks he wants to leave. He kept telling me and then he talked about it so much that I got scared and he made me have to do this." The man opened Carl on the bed's mouth. There was a red, shriveled-looking stump inside. "But I think we're making progress. We're gonna be friends." He knelt and licked Carl on the bed on the ear. "I've been working on it."

"I would have known this was what you were doing. You couldn't have done this," Carl said. "Not without my permission."

"If you want to see it like that, okay. But you're wrong. I'm smart. That's all." The other him pointed to his head. "I found a way to reverse what you do. And you really think that sharing your knowledge over continents and countries and bleh-bleh-BLEH isn't going to mean that I have access to it? He," here the other him pointed to the Carl on the bed with the hand that wasn't holding open a mouth, "had another doctorate at Harvard. He was going to be famous. He already had a lot of money, not just because he's one of you. I was smart but then I got messed up because I was tired of sharing. We have to share." The other Carl squirmed. "Am I scaring you? Sorry. We'll watch a movie, okay?"

The other him picked up a black DVD case and took out a disc, putting it on the tray. 

Carl watched. He puked.

"Sorry, maybe that wasn't a good fit."

"I'm not you. I'm not you, I wouldn't do this, not to myself, or anyone." Carl tried to push at the blocked-off place in his mind but nothing happened. "This isn't me. I wouldn't do this." He turned to the other Carl and said, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I didn't know. I wouldn't do this, I swear to you." But behind him the other him was laughing and said, "No, you would. But the other you, me," he waved here, "just ignored you while it happened. I like privacy."

That was when Carl decided to become a murderer. 

When he finished, a process that took hours, he came into the room with his upper torso covered in blood. He knelt and undid the restraints on Carl, who sat up slowly. "Which one are you?"

"Me, the sorry one."

"You better be. You, you better be."

"i am."

"HOW COULDN'T YOU SEE THIS? WHAT WAS HOLDING YOU BACK? AND WHERE IS HE?"

Carl pointed to a bloodied mass of limbs on the floor. 

"Bone saw."

Carl handed it to him. The other him was finely minced. Carl took out his phone because it was buzzing. He didn't recognize the number. "What?" 

"Carl."

"Sayers? We didn't exchange numbers."

"You need to get out."

"Why?"

"He's coming. Says he's the original you?"

*************************************

Carl opened his eyes and felt a far-off version of himself die. Another. Another. There, the balance was restored. He'd cleaned everything that needed to be cleaned, he'd prepared the day's meals, he had taught classes, helped in the gardens, read books, meditated, corrected articles on Wikipedia, prayed, and cooked. He thought about getting a llama, and he thought about repairing that engine turbine he'd brought in one night because he was just slightly bored. And he thought of a box that held a small folded piece of paper. A picture of himself as he was meant to be.

Only Sayers knew.

Outside the recruits mingled, and music played, arguments went on, jokes were told, homework was done and there was oblivious life in every part of it. Not more of the same. Not the worst of what he was manifesting and destroying another version of himself. He remembered looking in the eyes of Carl from the bed just before he jumped off a building, something that briefly made headlines, and then was hushed up by Carl's careful efforts. 

He was feeling a migraine.

Feeling a migraine.

"Original," he heard himself say. But now it was reversed. He wasn't in control. "I'm the original. Returned."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow. um. if you don't want to comment, that's cool, but if you do, go 'head.


	15. playing with the demon finally yields its consequences

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Original Carl has taken over and now everything will steadily progress from bad to worse, tension will rise as Real Carl tries to race and fix everything so no one he loves will get hurt. And yeah, I'm going to come out and say it. It's my hope that this will make you cry.
> 
> Oh! And there's something else. I think.

There are some people (many people) who begin life with the usual optimism of a child; as they grow older they accept their way of life as what is normal, and usually, because their way of life is similar to everyone else's, it fits the description of what's socially acceptable. Even if it's not ethical. Even if it is, in simple terms, wrong. A kid will think that it's okay to hit another kid because their older sibling hit them, or maybe someone will grow up under the impression that raising their voice and getting angry is the only way to be heard, the only way to get results. The problems could be "minor" or severe, depending on the results. Sometimes a life like that will only result in a person prone to asinine behavior, the kind who always seems to become a manager and to be overly proud of that accomplishment. Forty-year-old living with their mother, and not because she's old and sick. The other kind dies early or dies in prison. Or maybe they're just dead inside after all their youthful enthusiasm and hope has been drained away. 

It's hard to tell, because this starts when they're children. Everyone just starts paying attention when they become adults.

Carl had always been different. His family tried to make sure he was safe, but he could always tell that they were frightened; he could see blame in their eyes directed at themselves, because they'd created what was supposed to be impossible. The balance between giving their child a normal life and making sure his abnormalities didn't interfere with the charade quickly became too much to deal with; his parents had other children with different sets of needs, and the ways to provide for all those needs were few. But they did try, to their credit. Finally Carl, first a young kid with a passion for reading and staying away and "talking to his imaginary friends" as everyone in Carl's family had been taught to explain to people who asked. There were deserted buildings around where Carl lived, an area quickly being gentrified, meaning Carl's family would at some point move out, since they'd probably be unable to make the rent. His home would disappear, as he'd seen his neighbors' homes disappear, becoming either nicer homes or cutesy businesses meant to attract fresher populations. It was a bittersweet kind of progress, which would probably be the definition of progress itself. Carl's father found another house for them to rent, one with old plumbing and electrical systems, set 'way out in a woodsy area that could only be reached by rut-filled dirt roads curving through the trees in thin gray ribbons. They had cars, which Carl figured out how to fix since he didn't have any way to make friends that weren't literal clones of himself. Carl always got his chores done the fastest, finished the other kids' chores, did his homework, did his extracurricular activities, practiced his instruments, wrote his penpals, helped his parents work out the budgeting for the month. He grew up, and as he grew up, he understood loneliness. Any event involving friends felt like a scripted occasion; invisible cameras were always trained on him, everyone else around him normal while he was basically parading around in a human suit. He got money, degrees, short relationships that he tried to make special before cutting the person off (maybe this ruined them, but that was the kindest thing he could think to do), and he got better at using his powers. He became a good, lonely liar. An adult. 

And no one paid attention.

He didn't exist, as far as the world was concerned. Well, there were things with the government. But other than that.

Carl learned how to commit suicide. He learned how to dissolve his own corpse. How to be untraceable? How to be persuasive? How to be enigmatic and still not raise any eyebrows? Stay below radar, stay private, stay on the brink of becoming a shut-in or an 1800s-style hermit. All he needed was a pocketwatch and chain, and he'd be having a pithy conversation with a well-meaning heroine. She'd be wooden and uninteresting and they wouldn't finish the story. The manuscript pages would be burned. He would wish to be something else, to have something else, where he could show the one he loved that he was a lot more. Not even a lot richer, just. Many different facets, that'd be the best explanation. 

He found something good when he met Sayers, not really a romantic thing, but something not involving a lie. That was nice. It was new. And then he met Mendez and Ward, and it was Ward he truly recognized as something like himself. Two boys running because they didn't know who they were until it was too late. They both loved, and they loved in the wrong way, and people got hurt, so now all they could do was atone. Carl felt like he was a fake sometimes, because his family wasn't abusive by any stretch, apologizing when they shouted, knocking on his bedroom door before entering, including him in as much as he wanted to be included in, but still an underlying fear like he was a strange animal that needed to be fed and watched and let alone lest it get feral. That was some really complicated subtext to deal with. And Ward. Crud, that boy needed a hug like every other minute. Life? Sucky. Reputation? What reputation? Dog, missing in action. That was still messed up. Carl went looking for it once, results inconclusive. 

Original Carl was his first imaginary friend, when he was nine. It lit up every flashing red button Carl's mental control board had, now that he looked back. But he was nine. Alone, home-schooled, handled with care by a family that didn't know what to do. There were places to hide and play like the abandoned buildings first, and then the wide-open space surrounding the old house they went to. And at first, Original Carl seemed friendly. Carl woke up in his own bed to find a clone of himself staring down at him, not in a weird way, but in a way that was sort of tender. Loving. So that made it gazing. Carl was gazing up at himself. 

"I did it," Original Carl said.

"Did what?"

"Made you."

Two words like that were like two white keys next to each other on a piano, clangy and discordant and meant to be paired with other, kinder notes. Carl sat up and turned on the light. This Carl was wearing the pajamas he was wearing, or had been wearing, since he was now naked. Self-conscious, Carl pulled the blankets around his midsection and said, "You shouldn't be up. I put everyone to sleep."

"No you didn't. I made you sleep just now."

"No you didn't. I remember telling everyone, go to sleep. They did. So what are you?" Carl was checking to see if any of his other selves was awake. Nothing. Just the two of them. And this Carl only seemed stupid, and curious, not really the worst combination. It meant something to do other than read and study, or walk alone. Carl felt the breeze come through the window he knew that he had shut, but now it was open, and a black square of night was like an eye watching the scene in his room. It was the most isolated one, because that was the silent agreement in this family, and any weird noises could be attributed to the house's many imperfections. Every other Carl had basic similarities: one, they were aware of being "spares", as he called them; two, they could access the knowledge that any of the other existing clones had, scholastic mostly, since almost none of them formed original thoughts; and three, they were softer. Nicer. This Carl was a liar and that made him interesting. Looking back, yeah, Carl could call that part of his life an era of self-teaching. Dishonesty. Secrecy, which he tried not to do to his family, since they put up with enough because of his powers, the way he was able to access everything. The two of them starting playing in the places that Carl had found on his own, when he was walking or doing more chores. He could do almost anything, aside from find something new. And the Original Carl had a lot to show him. 

This boy had good taste, in food, in books, in nooks where it was truly private and the wind hissed softly through branches of young and old trees. He knew what words to say to make someone happy, to make them laugh, to make them cry, to make them take blame, to make them get in a fight; Original Carl was sinful. That was a true word, not at all pretentious. He'd be the boy in class going to prison if he was normal. The one pegged for failure or dirty success.

But he was trying. Trying to love. That much, Carl had to give him. Even now. Broken things try to love and sometimes the outcome is the inspiring Hallmark variety that ends in tears and hugging and it's beautiful, everyone's happy, cut the cake, it's all over and now we can all smile. Then, there's the sort that think they're doing it right, which is like someone saying they're a good driver or a great one, something that makes any sane person want to walk or take the bus instead, maybe take up bicycling, reduce the carbon footprint. Live. That sort of thing. Original Carl brought his mother flowers and made sure all the younger siblings (there were four of them) had everything ready for school. He put fresh batteries in smoke alarms and the night lights, he made breakfast, he planted a vegetable garden and helped Carl's father clear out the attic. He helped the family set up an account where they would sell the more salvageable stuff. The family actually relaxed. 

Then Original Carl would get bored. He'd disappear and Carl started feeling like he was the one meant to fill in, even though he knew, without any doubt, that he was the true version. They had arguments over this, about who was real, and both of them were real. But who had gotten there first? Both of them, they swore. And the cycle continued, until it fizzled out and they could be friends again. Original Carl drank, sometimes, never around the family, always alone. He started thinking thoughts that Carl could almost feel brushing the back of his mind like cold fingertips. Soft, scraping, wheedling, just barely there. Enough to chill the skin. 

They were playing catch once. A tennis ball, back and forth, just the two of them. Carl didn't really need to do anything in terms of school; he could skip a grade and no one would be surprised. Maybe two, if he wanted. School was starting to get boring, he thought. It was starting to chafe. He was reading more, wishing for bigger horizons, and different sights to see. Languages were easy because he had the time to learn them and get them just right, like getting the perfect outfit together piece by piece. How much did a passport cost? he wondered. He'd checked and it wasn't that much, and he had money, and he was almost a legal adult, which meant he could travel and no one could stop him, something he found very freeing when he thought of it. Thoughts of telling Original Carl about this and doing away with the other Carls in a kind way meant for suffering pets fluttered through his mind. He was crafting the words and about to say them as the ball slapped into his hand. His hand paused mid-throw because Original Carl had a look on his face, a smile.

"Are you drunk?" Carl asked.

"Nope."

"Don't lie."

"I'm not."

"Then what?"

"Look at us."

Carl looked up at the ball in his hand, looked at the sky and the branches and dark smudges that meant birds were resting at the treetops, and the hills. The house was like a faraway island. No one else but them. 

"You're playing with yourself," Original Carl said.

Carl stopped and his brow furrowed. Like an old man's. Just...furrowed.

"Playing with yourself. I'm playing with myself, playing..." He started laughing but it was harsh. Weird, misshapen. "Let me show you something, Carl."

"Why?"

"You mean what. I should have made you say what."

Then Original winged the ball high over the next hill. "Fetch."

Carl tried to keep tabs on him after that, but Original always seemed to know. And the more he was evaded, the more Carl started entertaining the worst possibility. Original was walling himself off, and if that was possible, maybe the other Carls could do it too, maybe there was a whole network of them just under the radar passing themselves off as normal. Would any of them do that? Were they capable? Maybe, because, well, Original was the evidence. Carl thought about trying to put him to sleep, but he wouldn't go down without a fight, and besides, there was that KNOWING quality. Original confronted him, told him to stop. Carl stopped, not because he wanted to, but because of the order. It chilled him for days, thinking of this. 

How could he not have known? He examined his face, Original's. Noticing the pieces of him that were missing from Carl's own face. He watched how Carl was with the family, too, how careful he was with the children and how kind to the parents. Something off, though, something that should have been obvious, but Carl was too shaken, too stupid. 

"Wake up."

He opened his eyes and looked up at the ceiling of his bedroom.

"Come see this."

He slid out of his bed, pushing back the sheets and comforter, and padded over his bedroom's warm carpet, out into the cold hardwood laminate of the hallway, to the door hanging open that led to his parents' bedroom, already knowing what he would find. Playing with his demon had finally yielded its consequence. He pushed open the door and walked to his parents' bedside to find them looking asleep, spooning, happy. He pushed his fingers to their throats, checking their pulse, finding nothing except skin still warm. Everything was impeccable, lifelike. Freak heart-attacks, a matched set, weird medical anomaly. That's what the experts would say. They wouldn't think differently; there was no evidence telling them to. And if there was, then it would tell them about him. Everyone always thought he was a little weird, but this would be stretching it just far enough to break them. It would make the news, maybe. Then it would flicker out.

Original stood by the bed. He looked depressed. "You should hate me right about now."

"What did you do to my little brothers and sisters?"

"They're fine. I'm not that far gone yet." He sounded resigned and ready to leave, the way someone does after they've tried everything and nothing has worked, so there's nothing left except to be alone. "I didn't do it right. I thought they liked me. I could've dealt with that." He put his hands in the pockets of his pajama pants, sighing. "Would've been enough. So scared, though." His voice was starting to shake. Carl could feel something like grief in him. Bewilderment, too. A failure to fit in the right spot. And because of this, Carl felt like he should apologize. 

"You need to go. I hope we don't meet. Don't think I'll be the same if we do."

"You called someone."

"I think I did? Could be my imagination. Still, you should leave." He was still crying. "That's best. I'm sorry," he said, walking past Carl. "Nothing worked. I had to."

"No, you didn't." 

He spoke to an empty room.

********************

"What am I doing back?" original said now, pushing carl to the back. small little tiny insignificant carl, useless, miniature. what will you do now, carl? "First I thought I'd start with a monologue. You've been messing around and that's cool, I don't grudge you that. I actually think it's cool. But you left me, and now I'm out a friend. You need to come back."

don't speak maybe he'll think he's won, maybe he'll leave. stay small. be small. he can't see you.

I'M IN YOUR HEAD YOU THINK I CAN'T HEAR YOU?

"You're not listening." Carl spoke to the glowing screen on his laptop, still buzzing softly, like it was trying to call out for help but had lost its voice. "You need to learn something. Get up."

don't get up sit down he can't make you stand, why are you getting up?

BECAUSE I TOLD YOU TO.

Carl walked by his other selves and they all nodded and smiled at him, unaware of what was happening, which meant that this was only happening to him. Nobody else knew. Just him, then. "You need to go to someone important. Let me look through here." Now he spoke under his breath so no one would look over at him. "Oh. Well, then." He rerouted and went to a staircase, and here he grabbed the rail and stopped. 

"no," carl said.

"Yes."

His arm trembled with the strain of holding on. "i'm not going up there."

"Methinks." And Carl stepped onto the first stair. "You are." Up. Up. Up. Halfway and then another stop. carl bent over, kneeling, holding onto the stair itself. "you won't hurt my friends." 

"You're doing this, not me. Say you're sorry."

"i'm sorry."

"For what?"

"i don't know, you just told me to say sorry."

"Killing our family."

carl's hands started to tingle and lose circulation. "that was you."

"Or was it you?"

"this is stupid." He got up and ran to the top then hauled himself over the side. His head cracked and caved in on impact. As people began to scream and crowd around his corpse, another Carl down the hall calmly went up the stairs to where Ward was just coming out of his room, saying, "Don't look. It's just a mess. They've got it. Mendez wants you to stay in here."

Ward listened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed it! Feel free to comment, and I think this is either THE end, or close to it. Then I'll move on to other horizons. Thanks to everyone who stuck with this. I liked chattering in the comments section with you guys, and no, it's not weird, and you are not talking too much.


	16. To Those In Power

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sayers figures largely at the beginning, and then we get to Ward doing things.
> 
> Morbidity? Yes. Closure? I really hope so.

A puddle of redness crawled over the floor, almost touching the shoes of kids getting ready to go to school. Sayers pulled a child away from it before it could reach the boy's sneakers and corralled the children and everyone else into a group away from the suicide. Grown-ups and older kids were covering the littler ones' eyes, and Sayers stepped over the corpse, not looking, not looking, just get up the stairs. There, and now... where was he? All the Carls were gone, she didn't know where, and filed that problem away to deal with later. Every door was open, every room was quiet, except for one door that was shut and inside she could see two shadows moving. One of the shadows divided from one into three: Carl was still kicking, good. One of them turned to face the wall and stopped, not even wavering the way people naturally do -- completely still, posed like that. Sayers stepped back and the figure moved its head. She moved forward and the head moved back. Two more people peeled away from the original and that's when she got it. Grown-up words piled up in her mouth; she walked up to the door and knocked, watching the shadows move away and block the door. Sayers opened the door before one of them could and stepped in. "You left a mess, didn't you?" Five of him, one of her, one of Ward, who still didn't know what was happening and just looked concerned. His eyes moved from her to Carl, in a way that meant he needed her help. 

Yeah... he really, really did.

"Why?" She kept her eyes on Carl's.

"Bored. Mendez wanted me to check on him. Did you clean me up yet?"

"Working on it. Mendez is pissed."

"Sorry."

There was silence. She smiled at Carl and said, "Wanna kiss?"

"Why?"

"Bored."

Carl smiled, too. "Gross."

"Yeah." She leaned in. Her fingers slipped over his neck and cupped the back of his head, rubbing her thumb through his hair, with her eyes locked into his and their lips that. Close. His breath smelled stale and hit her nose, and the saddest thing-- what she really hoped was in her head and her olfactory memory was just screwing with her -- was that it smelled like coffee. Reminding her of thousands of stolen cups, or cups brought to her whenever she wanted, or sometimes when she didn't; and that just led to all his book recommendations, how he remembered each person's name and birthday and favorite color, how to others he was so very kind but to himself so disposable... She turned his face and kissed his cheek, her chin crumpling. This was how people in charge felt, if they were fit to be in charge, if they had consciences ready to hold up under strain. Any good leader will inevitably be faced with a hard decision, or a scarring experience, and they'll remember it forever, and they'll remember the good times and what should have been even as they destroy any hope of keeping just some of that past intact. Any good leader will not want to be a leader because everyone will be looking at them, and they'll feel so unfit, so watched and dissected, that they'll want to hide. This was stronger than power. It was empathy, the least popular reaction; and it was breaking her. 

Ward had begun to cry. A little child's cry, shaking shoulders, confused eyes, messy ugliness ill-fitting for someone his age. He actually had gray hair and this was still happening. He couldn't stop it because he couldn't help it. "What did I do?" He got up. "Let me fix it. Please."

"You did good," Sayers said. "You. Did. Good. Okay, baby? Love you." She stepped back from Carl and sat down. "Carl?"

"Yeah."

"Hold on."

Silence. An empty bowl of it, filling, filling, tipping, spilling, rhyming. Quiet, buzzing. Ward with his tears; at least he could let them out now. Mendez wasn't there to see the progress, and that was a shame. Every Carl in the room cocked his head simultaneously, looking at her, and she patted his head. "You got it now, sweetie?"

"I do."

She broke his neck. There's a line between empathy and practicality. Every person fit to lead will come to it, tread it, cross it. Personally, Sayers had done all three while looking at the line and saying, "Screw it." She let his body fall and said, "That's two. Figure the rest out. Ward, trust me."

He ran out the door before she could finish her persuasion shtick. "I'd date you," she called, running behind him, "but that would feel incestuous."

"Your comebacks have come back."

"You wanted to use that." 

"Yep." A problem that Ward believed was his fault was usually enough to make him this productive and energetic, but NOW, when one of his friends was in trouble, he looked angry. Ward could break some things when he got this way. He saw Carl's corpse and barked at a few grown-ups to clean it up. "Where's Mendez?" This to Sayers. She pointed at the building outside, where Daisy and Hunter and Lincoln stayed whenever they had to spend the night. "They're still here?" Ward said. "I think so," she replied. "That works out great because now there's danger. Don't look to the left-- you looked to the left." Carls, and Carls, and Carls, piled up. Bloodied and mashed, thrown out the window. Sprawled in the vegetable patches, a couple of them still twitching, some others with glass shards jabbed into their skin, limbs snapped, hanging by tendons, entwined with other bodies like a tumbleweed. A corpse twitched its fingers at them, hello hello hello. Sayers led Ward to the building and kicked the door in, only saved by Ward putting himself in front of her when Hunter appeared with a gun. "Something's wrong," Ward said. "Don't know what, but ask Sayers. Don't kill her, either. She's important." The sentences sounded disjointed, crooked, awkward. Heartfelt and kept back, cherished, pushed out by someone who got very flustered by emotions. The phrase "pushed out" got Sayers thinking of a) babies, and then b) turds. Daisy came out, Lincoln keeping step with her, and Ward said, "Talk to Sayers." 

"Where you going, no, you're not... you are." 

"Carl needs me, doesn't he?" Checking, just to be sure. Is this right? Did I circle the right answer? 

"Yes. Go do the thing." 

"Bye."

"Love you, bro."

"...you too."

*****************************************

Carl sat in the center of Ward's room, hands on his head. He was crumpled, meaning his spine was bent in a curve, his elbows were poking up into the air above his head, his shoulder blades jutted from his skin underneath his shirt, meaning he couldn't get up and had to hold on since that was what Sayers told him to do and she didn't have a head like this no not like this and she had a good family and people down in Reception had good families and lives, they had things to lose, so he needed to get to work and be productive, he needed to make this count, he needed to do what he was told and hold on because people who were just a single edition of themselves. He needed to think with proper grammar so grammar-Nazis didn't shove red pencils up their anuses, and people in pain because of him had already been a thing before so now he needed to restrain himself. Slow down he needed to slowwwwww dowwwwwn and think with fluidity otherwise someone was going to get hurt again. It was going to lead back to him and this thing that was wrong inside of him and he was SCARED he was SCARED and he was SCARED. Stop repeating himself. Think. Slowly. Be careful. Locate the problem, isolate it, that's how these things went. 

Locate. He could feel his other versions spanning the globe, the ones who didn't know how to hide, and the ones who were non-confrontational. He talked to them and they ended it willingly, which would have eased his conscience if he hadn't been so busy that he couldn't feel it. There were others that he couldn't find because he was not an idiot, if Carl the Original was evidence. Isolate. All right, the ones who wanted to go had gone, and now there were other feisty versions that Original was drawing power from. What was wrong? What was the matter? Could he do anything? No, he was not the first edition. But the first edition sucked.

One... two... three. Four... five... six. He felt his consciousness swell with information, and kept going, up to ten, then to fifteen, seventeen, twenty-five, jumping in numbers like the percentage of a computer update. Thirty-eight... forty-two... fifty-three. Sixty-eight, seventy-three... eighty-five, eighty-nine. One hundred fourteen. Two-twenty. Two-fifty. And finally, he had a nice three hundred versions of himself all clamoring for space in his mind, crowding his brain with memories and information and languages, profanity, lies, guilt, love, lust, and pain. Boundless and far-reaching, forming one massive whole. He shouldn't have been possible, or so rebellious, because the creation's first function was to obey.

The whites of his eyes were going red, and he felt his irises breaking. He felt the Original, too, trying to probe through the barrier that Carl now found so easy to erect. "Come on," he said, and it felt like a million voices echoing out of his vocal chords. "You can do this." Original pressed in and in; he penetrated a few layers, got deeper in, got stuck, and realized he had gotten stuck. "Too late," Carl said. He jumped up and opened his mouth, absorbed the Original. Felt the darkness. Felt self-conscious. He was an atom ready to split. 

"Carl."

Ward? That didn't make sense. Why wasn't he. He needed to be, gone... gone? right? He heard that word in several different dialects. He saw the hieroglyphic of it. 

Now a warmth, warmth of arms, wrapped around him... Now closeness. 

"You're not going to want to stay," Carl said. Original was submerged, not a problem anymore. Just a struggling little twinge in the core of every other self. 

"You stayed."

"I got you coffee," Carl said. "Not the same."

Ward held on. "Do you need me to do anything?"

"I don't want to be dramatic."

"No, it's fine."

"Forgive me? I lied to you."

Ward's grip tightened. "Maybe I taught you that."

"Nope. That's just me, bro. Don't be scared of me," he said.

"I'm not."

"Good. Okay, okay... um. Let go."

"No."

"WARD, let GO." Carl pushed away and ran for the window, deteriorating, killing each self, not fast enough, the Original was still in there and maybe he could fight through but now he was going to flyyyyy, flyyyyy, FLY! And someone else would have to get the coffee. He felt his lungs working overtime, he felt his body-temperature spiking, he felt the air and broken glass and all his deaths and all his love and then he felt the air, but then. Then, he lurched and felt the bricks of the building wall strike his back, scratching his shoulders, and he felt stinging. Lots of stinging. He was holding on but it wasn't him; it was Original. The last of them were dying out, almost done, almost done... two. 

just them.

"Do you love me yet?" the Original asked.

no, Carl thought. but I do owe you. 

"oh." 

Someone pulled him up; he started fighting and trying to break the grip, but he kept climbing. Glass shards hit the floor in small plinks and shattered, and he was on the floor, Ward over him with worried eyes and Ward going to look out his window and looking down; Carl got up, strangely whole, and went to stand next to him. The Original was in full view of whoever cared to watch. He lifted his hands, like he wanted a hug but knew he wouldn't get one, and his face, his entire skull, started to... melt. It was like plastic: it started at the top of his skull, which caved in, and went to his eye-sockets, folding in, decaying and then nothing but air. Voluntary implosion. Carl didn't know he could do that. He filed that away in the brain that now felt too small. But at least it was whole.

Mendez came running up to the building and slammed through the doors, in full grizzly bear mode. "Where'd he go? What's wrong? You okay? Is everyone okay?" He had a monkey wrench obtained by some magic of his own, and he held it like a club. "Who do I need to kill?" 

"Sorry I scared you," Carl said.

"Ward's teaching you bad words." Mendez leaned back out the doorway and yelled, "SAYERS!"

"WHAT?"

"GET UP HERE!"

"I'M COMING!"

"You sure you're both good? You're both okay?"

"Ward was here. Of course I'm good."

Ward picked at the shards left in the window frame. ???????????????????? Compliment ?????????????????????? EMoTiONal ConNECTion????????????

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are almost at the end of this fic. Hope you all enjoyed and thanks for reading


	17. Mending

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where we get some fuzzies. Hope you like.

Carl's level of intelligence was probably just average, but it felt like downgrading from genius to barely competent child. Compressed memories took a lot of adjusting to, thousands of lives over the space of his one life, the end of his true self, and then the beginning of himself: all of them made up a soupy area in his brain that he kept sorting through each night, distracted, jumpy, almost overwhelmed by all the facts in his brain. He drew the important things to the front: where all his bank accounts were stashed, the numbers and pass-codes of each account, the information he'd stored all over the world in places that weren't his brain(s), and then the more sentimental details, how everyone liked their breakfasts and lunches and dinners and coffees (or not coffee; some of them were too young so he had to watch out for that, and some of them had a bad reaction when caffeine struck their Inhuman bloodstream with a variety of powers--Simmons was researching this now), everyone's birthday, everyone's middle name, everyone's first name... He wrote a lot of this down and made the names and preferences into a stack of flashcards that he flipped through when he couldn't sleep. Now there were just five of him, all of them resting, none of them venturing outside the room Mendez had put him in, a room that looked like Ward's but maybe it wasn't, since Ward's window didn't have tarp taped over it and light didn't shine through the tarp in a murky blob that distorted the placement of things at night. And Ward wasn't in this room. He was always in his room. But maybe he was busy. Or maybe he was scared. Or maybe, he just didn't know what to do, like Carl's family way back when.

Paperwork and locations were checked and double-checked, and he sent them to Sayers so she could do the heavy lifting. His brain was busy enough, figuring out how to Tetris every brain cell into its proper place. Oldest memories. New ones. The last one, and then his original hitting the ground below, landing in the vegetable patch that he'd dug up one night and ended up pissing off a herd of nine-year-olds who made weeds tangle in his hair. They were scared. That was sensible. He took the hint and stayed indoors. When it got dark, he sat up out on the roof, star-gazing, reading, doing a little more work to pass the time, going over his flashcards. He slept a lot, and woke up to trays on the table by the couch he always ended up on, covered in blankets, a pillow tucked under his head, a fan going if it was hot, an extra blanket if it was cold. Small gifts, strange gifts, always present with no explanation. And then Ward was there, too, and Sayers, and they were both reading to him, and Mendez was checking up on him and telling him to get well, and in the back of Carl's mind the thought that kept sifting through all the categories he was trying to tuck back into the right spot was that he didn't deserve this because he was a liar and they all knew it but they were moving on, and that didn't have any explanation either; it just happened, like the sun coming up or going down, and plants growing in the new rows that herd of nine-year-olds now tended to with more care like they were thinking of what they'd lost. He could lose things. He could teach other people how to lose things. He could convince them to lose things. Their sanity. Their reason. He'd numbed himself to the concept of death, to the point where it was like weeding, and that almost felt like a conversation topic that he may have been able to make suitable for that herd of nine-year-olds, but there was also a bed to sleep in, and they were scared, and that was sensible, and he was tired, so they were both separate and he stayed inside. 

"What do I do?" Ward said. It was night, and he was in the building where Daisy was still staying, although Hunter and Lincoln had gone back to S.H.I.E.L.D. with the new recruits. Simmons was in a back room with some of the more perplexing Inhumans; she would see him soon so they could decide what he would do about his powers. Even now he could feel each grain of dust and what it was composed of, how smudged it felt in his mind as he inspected it. The splinters of the table's wood, the bite-marks from minuscule, long-dead bugs, and the huge chunk of cement that was polished and then compacted into a foundation that you could walk on, but he could feel its connection to the dirt underneath and he knew exactly how many worms and bugs and other creatures were under there, how good the soil was, and how well the plants were growing. He could still detect traces of all the Carls' blood, even though they'd carted off every corpse and buried them in a mass grave, burning the Original and throwing the ashes into some fertilizer for one of the gardens, a plot way out on the fringe of the facilities. 

"What did Mendez do when you got like this?"

Got like what? He didn't pursue this. Carl was priority. (Side note: Ward hated the word 'priority'. It smelled like Coulson when he was on a hypocritical streak. And that smelled like ...something everybody did, and could relate to.) "He gave me a routine." 

Mendez was too busy to make sure Ward kept that up nowadays, but he did okay by himself. A few times he did skip his meds, but that was because he had honestly forgotten, and he made sure to keep better track of that, and he had Sayers to help him. But sometimes she got busy, too; since all of the Carls were gone except the five, and none of the five were helping, she had a lot more to do than she'd ever been used to. She wouldn't go into the room with Carl. She wasn't ready yet, she had said. With less than the appropriate amount of tact, Ward had asked her when she would be ready. That was an honest question, not cruel or kind, but even so, Sayers had punched him, and he had let her. It seemed to help her, and it didn't hurt him. Maybe he could teach her about that, when she was ready. 

"So give him one."

"He's made one on his own."

"That's the wrong one, then. When you made a routine by yourself what did you think you needed to do?"

"Work."

"And?"

He got the point.

"So if Carl's working his butt off trying to redeem himself that would mean he's neglecting everything else."

"We bring him food. And water."

"Good. And what else?"

"Things to do?"

"Like what?"

"Work..."

Daisy's eyes shut in exasperation. "He's holed up in his room."

"Not all the time."

"Oh, yeah. The roof. Who does this sound like?"

He got this point, too.

"Go talk to him."

"I do."

"I don't mean read to him, I mean talk to him."

"I think he needs time."

Daisy pulled the water out of Ward's glass, which sat on the table, and made it curve into a spiral, glittering in the overhead lights. One of them was flickering. Mendez would need to come check on it later. "You know him more than I do, so I'll trust you. Just don't overdo it. All right? Baby-steps."

Ward nodded to show that he understood. "Why'd you say sorry?" he asked. 

"I needed to. And I still am. Sorry. That... that sounded better in my head."

"You still talk to me, and you still trust me, after all I've done. Why."

"Ward."

"WHY?" Why was he shouting? He should let this go; she was getting angry and if she got angry that would mean she would do an earthquake and then she would feel bad, and it would be his fault. He would be responsible for hurting her again. "Sorry," he said.

"It's fine."

"You don't need to be nice to me."

"I do it because it's the right thing. My selfish side says leave you to burn, but what Coulson's taught me, well. I'm going with my better self. And my S.O. taught me some good stuff, too."

He felt himself fragment a little, like he wanted to evaporate.

"I miss those times," she said, "so much. If I had a choice to fix everything, to help you, that's what I'd be doing. Because you're important, Ward, you matter, to Mendez and Sayers and Carl, and you mattered so much to everyone before. I wish I could fix your life for you... But." She lifted her shoulders. Tears were on her cheeks. She brushed them off and said, "At least I can do this. And you can help Carl, like you helped me, like Mendez taught you. You know how, is what I mean."

"Should I say thank you?" An honest question, not cruel or kind.

"If you want."

"Thanks."

"Sure."

Simmons came to call Ward into her lab, and once inside, he made his choice. This was what they needed and this was who he had become. So yeah, he was keeping it.

Ward went back to Carl's room and began the process of drawing Carl out of the room. When they reached the point where Carl was outside, shaking and uncertain, Ward saw Mendez smiling and he saw Sayers look up from her laptop and he saw admiration in the eyes of every Inhuman. It felt wrong, but he stood there, let the memory soak into him, and then he led Carl back inside. The door shut with a groaning creak that crawled up through the bricks, and ivy leaves shook softly in the breeze, with birds perching on the building's eyes, their heads cocking around to take in their surroundings before they launched up, into the sky, up past the clouds, and into the sun.

~The End~

**Author's Note:**

> Here we are again, at the end. *sappy music playing* If you want to comment please do. Thank you for reading!


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